Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  • Cited by 10
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2019
Print publication year:
2019
Online ISBN:
9781108672047

Book description

What is the Darwinian revolution and why is it important for philosophers? These are the questions tackled in this Element. In four sections, the topics covered are the story of the revolution, the question of whether it really was a revolution, the nature of the revolution, and the implications for philosophy, both epistemology and ethics.

Reviews

‘The refreshing aspect of this rambling romp through the history and philosophy of the Darwinian revolution is that although Ruse is writing for young philosophers of science, he does so from a place of comfort both with the science and the history. In doing so, he provides the perfect introduction to this diffuse and contentious literature, which can be rather foreign terrain for uninitiated biologists.’

John Reiss Source: The Quarterly Review of Biology

Bibliography

Agassiz, L. 1859. Essay on Classification. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts and Trubner.
Anon, . 1860a. Natural selection. All the Year Round 3 (63): 293299.
Anon, . 1860b. Species. All the Year Round 3 (58): 174178.
Arendt, H. 1976. Totalitarianism: Part Three of the Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt.
Balfour, A. 1895. The Foundations of Belief. New York: Longmans, Green.
Barrett, P. H., Gautrey, P. J., Herbert, S., Kohn, D., and Smith, S., eds. 1987. Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, 1836–1844. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Bates, H. W. [1863]1892. The Naturalist on the River Amazon. London: John Murray.
Beecher, H. W. 1885. Evolution and Religion. New York: Fords, Howard, and Hulbert.
Bergson, H. 1907. L’évolution créatrice. Paris: Alcan.
Bowler, P. J. 1983. The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinism Evolution Theories in the Decades around 1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Bowler, P. J. 1988. The non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Bowler, P. J. 1989. The Mendelian Revolution: The Emergence of Hereditarian Concepts in Modern Science and Society. London: The Athlone Press.
Bowler, P. J. 2005. Revisiting the eclipse of Darwinism. Journal of the History of Biology 38: 1932.
Bowler, P. J. 2013. Darwin Deleted: Imagining a World without Darwin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Braithwaite, R. 1953. Scientific Explanation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Browne, J. 1995. Charles Darwin: Voyaging. Volume I of a Biography. New York: Knopf.
Browne, J. 2002. Charles Darwin: The Power of Place. Volume II of a Biography. New York: Knopf.
Burchfield, J. D. 1975. Lord Kelvin and the Age of the Earth. New York.: Science History Publications.
Burroughs, E. R. [1912] 1914. Tarzan of the Apes. Chicago: McClurg.
Callebaut, W. 1993. Taking the Naturalistic Turn. Chicago.: University of Chicago Press.
Chambers, R. 1844. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. London: J. Churchill.
Chambers, R. 1846. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, 5th ed.London: J. Churchill.
Clifford, W. K. 1901. Body and Mind (from Fortnightly Review). In Stephen, L. and Pollock, F., eds., Lectures and Essays of the Late William Kingdom Clifford. 2: 151. London: Macmillan.
Collins, H. M. 1981. Stages in the empirical program of relativism. Introduction. Social Studies of Science 11: 310.
Comstock, J. H. 1893. Evolution and taxonomy. The Wilder Quarter Century Book, 37114. Ithaca: Comstock Publishing.
Cunningham, S. 1996. Philosophy and the Darwinian Legacy. Rochester: University of Rochester Press.
Cuvier, G. 1813. Essay on the Theory of the Earth. Trans. Robert, Kerr. Edinburgh:, W. Blackwood.
Cuvier, G. 1817. Le règne animal distribué d’aprés son organisation, pour servir de base à l’histoire naturelle des animaux et d’introduction à l’anatomie comparée. Paris.
Darwin, C. 1844. Geological observations on the volcanic islands visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, together with some brief notices of the geology of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope. Being the second part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836. London: Smith Elder.
Darwin, C. 1851a. A Monograph of the Fossil Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes of Great Britain. London: Palaeontographical Society.
Darwin, C. 1851b. A Monograph of the Sub-Class Cirripedia, with Figures of All the Species. The Lepadidae; or Pedunculated Cirripedes. London: Ray Society.
Darwin, C. 1854a. A Monograph of the Fossil Balanidae and Verrucidae of Great Britain. London: Palaeontographical Society.
Darwin, C. 1854b. A Monograph of the Sub-Class Cirripedia, with Figures of All the Species. The Balanidge (or Sessile Cirripedes); the Verrucidae, and C. London: Ray Society.
Darwin, C. 1859. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray.
Darwin, C. 1861. Origin of Species, 3rd ed. London: John Murray.
Darwin, C. 1862. On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilized by Insects, and On the Good Effects of Intercrossing. London: John Murray.
Darwin, C. 1868. The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. London: Murray.
Darwin, C. 1871. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray.
Darwin, C. 1985-. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Darwin, C., and Wallace, A. R.. 1958. Evolution by Natural Selection. Foreword by Gavin de Beer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Darwin, E. [1794–1796]1801. Zoonomia; or, The Laws of Organic Life, 3rd ed. London: J. Johnson.
Darwin, E. 1803. The Temple of Nature. London: J. Johnson.
Dawkins, R. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dawkins, R. 1986. The Blind Watchmaker. New York.: Norton.
Dawkins, R. 2006. The God Delusion. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt.
Dennett, D. C. 2006. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York: Viking.
Disraeli, B. [1847] 1871. Tancred. New York: Appleton.
Dixon, E. S. 1862. A vision of animal existences. Cornhill Magazine 5 (27): 311318.
Fodor, J., and Piattelli-Palmarini, M.. 2010. What Darwin Got Wrong. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Goodwin, B. 2001. How the Leopard Changed Its Spots, 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gould, S. J. 1977. Ontogeny and Phylogeny. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Gould, S. J. 1981. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: Norton.
Gould, S. J. 1988. On replacing the idea of progress with an operational notion of directionality. In Nitecki, M. H., ed., Evolutionary Progress (pp. 319–338). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Gould, S. J. 1989. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. New York: W. W. Norton Co.
Gould, S. J., and Lewontin, R. C.. 1979. The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: A critique of the adaptationist programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences 205: 581598.
Greene, J. C. 1981. The Kuhnian Paradigm and the Darwinian Revolution in Natural History. In Science, Ideology and World View. Essays in the History of Evolutionary Ideas, 3059. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
Greene, J. C., and Ruse, M.. 1996. On the nature of the evolutionary process: The correspondence between Theodosius Dobzhansky and John C. Greene. Biology and Philosophy 11: 445491.
Hardy, T. 1994. Collected Poems. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Poetry Library.
Hempel, C. G. 1965. Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York.: Free Press.
Hempel, C. G. 1966. Philosophy of Natural Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall.
Herschel, J. F. W. 1830. Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman.
Hull, D. L., ed. 1973. Darwin and His Critics: The Reception of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by the Scientific Community. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.
Hull, D. L. 1974. The Philosophy of Biological Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Hume, D. 1978. A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Huxley, T. H. [1859] 1893. The Darwinian hypothesis. Times, December 26. Reprinted in Huxley, Collected Essays: Darwiniana. London: Macmillan, 121.
Huxley, T. H. [1893] 2009. Evolution and Ethics, ed. with an Introduction by Ruse, Michael. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hyatt, A. 1889. Genesis of the Arietidae. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 16 (3): 1238.
Hyatt, A., and Arms, J. M.. 1890. Guides for Science-Teaching. No. VIII. Insecta. Boston: D.C. Heath.
James, W. 1907. Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. New York: Longmans, Green.
Kant, I. [1788] 1898. Critique of Practical Reason, trans. T. K. Abbott. London: Longmans, Green.
Kant, I. [1790] 2000. Critique of the Power of Judgment, ed. Guyer, P.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kellogg, V. L. 1905. Darwinism Today. New York: Henry Holt.
Kirby, W., and Spence, W.. 1815–1828. An Introduction to Entomology: or Elements of the Natural History of Insects. London: Longman, Hurst, Reece, Orme, and Brown.
Kropotkin, P. 1902. Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution. Boston: Extending Horizons Books.
Kuhn, T. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kuhn, T. 1977. The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kuhn, T. 1993. Metaphor in science. In Ortony, Andrew, ed., Metaphor and Thought, 2nd ed. (pp. 533542). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lakatos, I., and Musgrave, A.. 1970. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lamarck, J-B. 1809. Philosophie zoologique. Paris: Dentu.
Larson, E. J. 1997. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion. New York: Basic Books.
Lorenz, K. [1941] 1982. Kant’s Lehre vom a priorischen im Lichte geganwartiger Biologie. ‘Blatter fur Deutsche Philosophie’ 15: 94125. Translated and reprinted as: Kant’s doctrine of the ‘a priori’ in the light of contemporary biology. H. C. Plotkin, ed., Learning, Development, and Culture; Essays in Evolutionary Epistemology, 121–143. Chichester: Wiley.
Lovejoy, A. O. 1936. The Great Chain of Being. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.
Lucas, J. R. 1979. Wilberforce and Huxley: A legendary encounter. Historical Journal 22: 313330.
Mackie, J. L. 1977. Ethics. Harmondsworth, Mddx.: Penguin.
Malthus, T. R. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population. London: Printed for J. Johnson, In St. Paul’s Church-Yard. Reprint 1966, New York: Macmillan.
Malthus, T. R. [1826] 1914. An Essay on the Principle of Population, 6th ed. London: Everyman.
Mayhew, R. J. 2014. Malthus: The Life and Legacies of an Untimely Prophet. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Maynard Smith, J. 1995. Genes, memes, and minds. New York Review of Books 42 (19): 4648.
Mayr, E. 1969. Commentary. Journal of the History of Biology 2, 123128.
McMullin, E. 1983 . Values in science. PSA 1982, ed. Asquith, P. D. and Nickles, T., pp. 3-28, East Lansing, MI.: Philosophy of Science Association.
Müller, J. F. T. 1879. Ituna and Thyridia: A remarkable case of mimicry in butterflies. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of London: 2029.
Naden, C. 1999. Poetical Works of Constance Naden. Kernville, CA.: High Sierra Books.
Nagel, E. 1961. The Structure of Science, Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.
Nagel, T. 1979. Mortal Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nagel, E. 2012. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. New York: Oxford University Press.
Noll, M. 2002. America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nowak, M. A., Tarnita, C. E., and Wilson, E. O.. 2010. The evolution of eusociality. Nature 466: 10571062.
Numbers, R. L. 2006. The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design. Expanded ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Osborn, H F. 1896. Ontogenic and phylogenic variation. Science 4: 786789.
Owen, R. 1849. On the Nature of Limbs. London: Voorst.
Owen, R. 1866. Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of Vertebrates. London: Longmans, Green.
Paley, W. [1802] 1819. Natural Theology (Collected Works: IV). London: Rivington.
Peirce, C. S. 1955. Philosophical Writings of Peirce, ed. Buchler, J.. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
Pence, C. H. 2018. Sir John F.W. Herschel and Charles Darwin: Nineteenth-century science and its methodology. HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science. 8: 108140.
Pinker, S. 2011. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. New York: Viking.
Pinker, S. 2018. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. New York: Viking.
Plantinga, A. 1991. When faith and reason clash: Evolution and the Bible. Christian Scholar’s Review 21 (1): 832. Reprinted in D. Hull and M. Ruse, eds., The Philosophy of Biology (pp. 674–697). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Plantinga, A. 2011. Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Popper, K. R. 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson.
Poulton, E. B. 1890. The Colours of Animals. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner.
Powell, B. 1855. Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
Provine, W. B. 1971. The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Putnam, H. 1982. Why reason can’t be naturalized. Synthese 52: 323.
Quine, W V O. 1969. Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ramsey, G., and De Block, A.. 2017. Is cultural fitness hopelessly confused? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68: 305328.
Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rhees, R., ed. 1981. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections. Oxford: Blackwell.
Richards, R. 2013. Sexual selection. In Ruse, M., ed., The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Darwin and Evolutionary Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, R. J. 1987. Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Richards, R. J. 2003. The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Richards, R. J., and Ruse, M.., eds. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to the “Origin of Species.” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, R. J., and Ruse., M.. 2016. Debating Darwin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rudwick, M. J. S. 1972. The Meaning of Fossils. New York: Science History Publications.
Ruse, M. 1973. The Philosophy of Biology. London: Hutchinson.
Ruse, M. 1979. The Darwinian Revolution: Science Red in Tooth and Claw. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ruse, M. 1980. Charles Darwin and group selection. Annals of Science 37: 615630.
Ruse, M. 1981. What kind of revolution occurred in geology? PSA 1978, 2: 240273. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association.
Ruse, M. 1986. Taking Darwin Seriously: A Naturalistic Approach to Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.
Ruse, M., ed. 1988. But Is It Science? The Philosophical Question in the Creation/Evolution Controversy. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus.
Ruse, M. 1996. Monad to Man: The Concept of Progress in Evolutionary Biology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ruse, M. 2003. Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ruse, M. 2006. Darwinism and Its Discontents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ruse, M. 2008. Charles Darwin. Oxford: Blackwell.
Ruse, M., ed. 2009. Philosophy after Darwin: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ruse, M. 2010. Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ruse, M. 2012. The Philosophy of Human Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ruse, M., ed. 2013a. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Darwin and Evolutionary Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ruse, M. 2013b. The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ruse, M. 2015. Atheism: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ruse, M. 2017a. Darwinism as Religion: What Literature Tells Us About Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ruse, M. 2017b. On Purpose. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ruse, M. 2018. The Problem of War: Darwinism, Christianity, and Their Battle to Understand Human Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ruse, M., and Richards, R. J., eds. 2017. The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ruse, M, and Wilson, E. O.. 1985. The evolution of morality. New Scientist 1478: 108128.
Ruse, M, and Wilson, E. O.. 1986. Moral philosophy as applied science. Philosophy 61: 173192.
Russell, B. 1914. Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy. Chicago: Open Court.
Russell, B. 1959. My Philosophical Development. London: Allen and Unwin.
Russell, E. S. 1916. Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology. London: John Murray.
Sebright, J. 1809. The Art of Improving the Breeds of Domestic Animals in a Letter Addressed to the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, K.B. London: Privately published.
Secord, J. A. 2000. Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Shapere, D. 1964. The structure of scientific revolutions. Philosophical Review 73: 383394.
Sidgwick, H. 1876. The theory of evolution in its application to practice. Mind 1: 5267.
Simpson, G. G. 1944. Tempo and Mode in Evolution. New York: Columbia University Press.
Simpson, G. G. 1949. The Meaning of Evolution. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Simpson, G. G. 1953. The Major Features of Evolution. New York: Columbia University Press.
Singer, P. 1972. Famine, affluence and morality. Philosophy and Public Affairs 1: 229243.
Smith, A. [1776] 1937. The Wealth of Nations. New York: Modern Library.
Sober, E. 1984. The Nature of Selection. Cambridge, MA: M. I. T. Press.
Sober, E. 2011. Did Darwin Write the “Origin” Backwards? Philosophical Essays on Darwin’s Theory. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus.
Sober, E., and Wilson, D. S.. 1998. Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Spencer, H. 1852. A theory of population, deduced from the general law of animal fertility. Westminster Review 1: 468501.
Spencer, H. 1857. Progress: Its law and cause. Westminster Review LXVII: 244267.
Spencer, H. 1879. The Data of Ethics. London: Williams and Norgate.
Teilhard de Chardin, P. 1955. Le Phénomène Humain. Paris: Editions de Seuil.
Tennyson, A. [1850] 1973. In Memoriam. In Memoriam: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism. Ed. Ross, R. H., 390. New York: Norton.
Tennyson, A. 1998. The Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson. London: Wordsworth.
Tutt, J. W. 1890. Melanism and melanochroism in British lepidoptera. The Entomologist’s Record, and Journal of Variation 1, no. 3: 4956.
Wallace, A. R. 1858. On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnaean Society, Zoology 3: 5362.
Wallace, A. R. 1870. Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection. London: Macmillan.
Wallace, A. R. 1876. The Geographical Distribution of Animals 2 Vols. London: Macmillan.
Weldon, W. F. R. 1898. Presidential Address to the Zoological Section of the British Association. Transactions of the British Association., 887902. Bristol.
Wells, H. G. [1895] 2005. The Time Machine. London: Penguin.
Whewell, W. 1837. The History of the Inductive Sciences. London: Parker.
Whewell, W. 1840. The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. London: Parker.
Whewell, W. 1845. Indications of the Creator. London: Parker.
Whitcomb, J. C., and Morris, H. M.. 1961. The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company.
Wiener, P. 1949. Evolution and the Founders of Pragmatism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wilson, E. O. 1975. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wilson, E. O. 1978. On Human Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wilson, E. O. 1992. The Diversity of Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wilson, E. O. 2014. The Meaning of Human Existence. New York: Liveright.
Wittgenstein, L. 1922. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Metrics

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.