The Import of Darwinism
in Philosophy
Darwin's conceptual
scheme for explaining the origin and evolution of species as being a
consequence of natural selection has become the conceptual thread that ties
together essentially all of modern biology. More remarkably, what we may loosely
call Darwinism has impacted nearly every field and perennial question in
philosophy.
At least five reasons
readily come to mind why Darwin's ideas have had such broad impact.
1) By providing an
alternative to intelligent design as the explanation of the origin of all
living and extinct species, including Homo sapiens, Darwinian evolution
undermines one of the most compelling arguments for the role of a supernatural
creator in the natural world and in human affairs. This alternative
explanation reopens a great many philosophical questions in which Western
thought had previously presumed a major role for the Creator. It thus
impacts metaphysics, ontology, and ethics.
2) By invoking
gradual change as the mechanism of the development of all the amazing variations
of form and behavior seen among living things, Darwinism calls into question
many of the sharp distinctions made historically by philosophers and
pre-Darwinian scientists. Epistemology and volition in an evolved
creature cannot be entirely separate from biology. Neither can ethics,
social organization (including concepts of governance and justice), or
esthetics, since each of these could at least potentially be subject to natural
selection.
3) By invoking
chance as the raw material on which natural selection can work, Darwinism begs
the question as to how much of our nature, history, and culture are, even more
than we previously suspected, the result of chance rather than of destiny or
physical or historical laws. Thus Darwinism further impacts virtually all
the fields mentioned above.
4) Since Darwinism
in itself invokes no values, and requires of "fitness" only that it
be a measure of the ability of an individual to have fertile offspring in its
current environment, the structure of the theory gives considerable inspiration
to all those who contemplate relativism in many different fields.
5) Since evolution
through natural selection applies not only to biological populations, but to
any system in which entities are capable of reproduction with random
alterations and variable reproductive success, Darwin's ideas also have at
least some bearing on cultural products and beliefs, and perhaps also nonliving
physical forms, from tiny crystals to the nature of the multiverse.
Obviously, in our cafe,
we have no hope of being exhaustive, balanced, or scholarly in our evaluation
of the impact of Darwinism. Instead, we propose to conduct a parlor game:
Any player may nominate a philosophical field or question as one upon
which Darwinism has had, or should have, no significant bearing. To that
nomination, the cafe will respond with either assent or counter-examples, and
probably both!
In honor of Darwin's
February birthday, we invite you to the party and encourage you to bring a
nomination to share.
READINGS
Online:
Evolution and
Philosophy, An Introduction, John S. Wilkins (a Research Fellow in Philosophy
at the University of Sydney, the author of Defining Species: A Sourcebook from
Antiquity to Today.)
Darwinism, Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Books:
Darwin's Dangerous Idea,
Daniel C. Dennett (1991)
Darwinism and
Philosophy, Vittorio Hosle and Christian Illies (2005)
ReplyDeletehttps://soundcloud.com/philosophytalk/darwin
Thanks Jim! This is really great!
DeleteYears ago, while reading the March-April 1998 issue of *American Scientist* I chanced upon a review of Ernst Mayr's book, This is Biology: The Science of the Living World. Much of the review focused on Mayr's concept of organicism which he defined as "the belief that the unique characteristics of living organisms are not due to their composition but rather to their organization." The reviewer, Walter J. Bock, found this definition to be inadequate as a representation of Mayr's views because while it covered many of his ideas it omitted mention of the genetic program and of evolutionary explanations. The reviewer suggested that the definition of organicism ought to be expanded so as to encompass evolutionary history. And organicism will encompass a number though not all or even most functional explanations. The reviewer suggested that in the future biologists and philosophers will find the clarification of which functional explanations are included in organicism will constitute a major problem in elaborating the organicist paradigm.
ReplyDeleteThe reviewer went on to discuss Mayr's distinction between proximal and ultimate causation, that is functional versus evolutionary explanations in biological analysis. He then went on to suggest that it is a mistake to suppose that functional explanations versus evolutionary explanation are synonymous with nomological-deductive versus historical-narrative explanations. Instead the reviewer contended that while all functional explanations seem to deductive-nomological and all historical-narrative explanations appear to be evolutionary many kinds of evolutionary explanations are also deductive-nomological. However, the reviewer found Mayr's discussions of functional explanations to be less than adequate. While no biological explanation can be considered complete without an evolutionary explanation it was in his opinion not the case that evolutionary explanations are necessary for functional explanations to make sense.
The question of the relationships between functional explanations and evolutionary explanations in Darwinian biology has close parallels in historical materialism. Indeed, it is my contention that G.A. Cohen's discussion of the nature of functional explanations in historical materialist theory can shed much insight on the nature of such explanations in biology. Cohen in his 1978 book, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence, argued that historical materialist explanations can be shown upon analysis to functional explanations. Like the reviewer in American Scientist, Cohen stressed that functional explanations by themselves are quite adequate as explanations. However, if we want a more complete explanation we must turn to what Cohen called elaborations. Elaborations provide fuller explanations and they locate the functional facts within longer stories that specify the explanatory roles of these facts more precisely. What Cohen called elaborations closely correspond with what the biologist calls evolutionary explanations. Indeed, Cohen found that in social theory elaborations fall into several categories including purposive elaborations, Darwinian elaborations, Lamarckian elaborations, and also what he called self-deceptive elaborations in which the functional fact operates through the minds of agents but without their full conscious acknowledgement. In biology, of course, only what Cohen called Darwinian elaborations would be recognized as being scientifically valid but in social theory the situation is more complicated and Cohen suggested that a full explanation of why a given functional fact is explanatory might require reference to two or more varieties of elaborations.
Thus, we have here an interesting situation. Cohen's discussion of the role of functional explanations in historical materialism draws heavily upon analyses of such explanations by biologists and philosophers of science. Yet, as I have hoped to have shown, the kind of analysis that Cohen made of such explanations in historical materialism can in turn shed light on this issue as it is faced by biologists. In other words, evolutionary biology can shed light upon historical materialist theory and vice versa. It is perhaps, therefore, not too surprising that one of the leading philosophical analysts of evolutionary biology, Eliot Sober, is also a Marxist.
ReplyDeleteB.F. Skinner, Selection by consequences, Science 31 Jul 1981: Vol. 213, Issue 4507, pp. 501-504.
ReplyDeleteAbstract
Selection by consequences is a causal mode found only in living things, or in machines made by living things. It was first recognized in natural selection, but it also accounts for the shaping and maintenance of the behavior of the individual and the evolution of cultures. In al three of these fields, it replaces explanations based on the causal modes of classical mechanics. The replacement is strongly resisted. Natural selection has now made its case, but similar delays in recognizing the role of selection in the other fields could deprive us of valuable help in solving the problems which confront us.
http://www.direncsakarya.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/selection-by-consequences.pdf
Skinner's notion that selection by consequences can be seen as operating on three different levels (the genetic, the behavioral and the socio-cultural level) is one that has been embraced by a number of different thinkers, who have attempted to use selection by consequences as an explanatory paradigm in various disciplines. Social Darwinism was a rather crude form of this but in the 20th and 21st centuries a number of thinkers have attempted to do this in a more sophisticated manner. Skinner was one example, but there are a number of others. Richard Dawkins in his book, The Selfish Gene, popularized his notion of the meme. Karl Popper, for example, developed what he called an evolutionary epistemology which attempted to understand human intellectual evolution in selectionist terms. Popper's friend, the economist Friedrich Hayek, not only attempted to portray market economies as operating in terms of selection by consequences but he also argued that social evolution could likewise be understood in selectionist terms as well. While the British Marxist sociologist Alan Carling has proposed a selectionist interpretation of historical materialism.
ReplyDeleteCarling has attempted to develop a selectionist interpretation of historical materialism that is patterned after Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. For Carling the progression of modes of production through history is to be explained in selectionist terms. In his theory, class struggle plays a role analogous to that of genetic mutations in Darwinian biology - that is as a source of new variations in the relations of production. Different outcomes in class struggles produce different variations in the relations of production which are then subjected to selection pressures as they compete with other relations of production. In this way, Carling attempts to reconcile the explanation of history in terms of class struggle with explanations of history in terms of the forces/relations dialectic.
Carling sees the competition between rival modes of production as involving both plain economic competition as well as political-military competition. Also, sometimes countries will adopt a different mode of production because it is perceived as leading to more developed forces of production. One thinks of Japan's decision under the Meiji Restoration to become capitalist in order to avoid cannibalization such as China had suffered.