Debating Darwin, or the Combat between the Two Cultures: Reflections on a Discomfort in the History of Ideas

Authors

  • Bárbara Jiménez-Pazos Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea. Departamento de Filosofía, Facultad de Educación, Filosofía y Antropología

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48160/18532330me13.332

Keywords:

Debating Darwin, Ruse, Richards, two cultures, disenchantment of the world, history of ideas

Abstract

This article traces the origins of the clash of ideas that underpins the debate that Michael Ruse and Robert J. Richards carry out in Debating Darwin. In this work, the authors discuss the sociocultural context that fueled Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to recognize the conceptual similarities it shares with classic dichotomies about humanistic or scientific ways of perceiving and interpreting the world. The objective of this article is, therefore, to reflect, in the light of the theses of the disenchantment of the world and the impact of scientific knowledge on images of the world, on the root from which the cultural unrest that bases these dual forms of perception and description of the world in the history of ideas: the supposed inability of the scientific conception of the world to satisfy basic aesthetic-existential impulses of human nature.

References

Barlow, N. (ed.) (2005), The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Baumer, F. L. (1985), El Pensamiento Europeo Moderno (traducción de Juan José Utrilla), México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Brockman, J. (1995), The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution, New York: Touchstone.

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. (1860), Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle round the World, under the Command of Capt. Fitz Roy, R.N, London: John Murray.

Darwin, F. (ed.) (1887), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter, 3 Vols, London: John Murray.

Dawkins, R. (1998), Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Dennett, D. C. (1996), Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, New York: Norton.

Dilthey, W. (1931), Weltanschauungslehre: Abhandlungen zur Philosophie der Philosophie, en Gesammelte Schriften (ed. por Bernhard Groethuysen), Vol. 8, Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht.

Gould, S. J. (1989), “Church, Humboldt, and Darwin: The Tension and Harmony of Art and Science”, en Kelly, F. (ed.), The Paintings of Frederic Edwin Church, Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 94-107.

Hegel, G. W. F. (1975), Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Introduction: Reason in History (traducido por N. H. Nisbet), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jiménez Pazos, B. (2016), Imagen del mundo, percepción y descripción de la naturaleza. Un estudio comparado en torno a las presuposiciones onto-epistemológicas en la poesía romántica inglesa y la prosa científica de Charles Darwin, Tesis doctoral, Departamento de Filosofía, Universidad del País Vasco.

Jiménez Pazos, B. (2017), “Charles Darwin y el ‘desencantamiento’ weberiano”, Daimon. Revista Internacional de Filosofía 71: 95-106.

Jiménez-Pazos, B. (2021a), “Journey from Enchantment to Disenchantment? A Study on Darwin’s Descriptions of Nature from the Journal to the Origin”, Daimon. Revista Internacional de Filosofía 83: 71-87.

Jiménez-Pazos, B. (2021b), “Darwin’s Perception of Nature and the Question of Disenchantment: A Semantic Analysis across the Six Editions of On the Origin of Species”, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 43(57): https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-021-00373-y

Jiménez-Pazos, B. (2022), “Darwin Puzzled? A Computer-assisted Analysis of Language in the Origin of Species,” Topoi. An International Review of Philosophy 41: 561-571.

Levine, G. (2011), Darwin the Writer, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Marquard, O. (1986), “Über die Unvermeidlichkeit der Geisteswissenschaften”, en Apologie des Zufälligen, Stuttgart: Reclam, pp. 98-116.

Randall, J. (1976), The Making of the Modern Mind: a Survey of the Intellectual Background of the Present Age, New York: Columbia University Press.

Rorty, R. (2009), Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Richards, R. J. (2011), “Darwinian Enchantment”, en Levine, G. (ed.), The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for how We Live Now, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 185-204.

Richards, R. J. y M. Ruse (2016), Debating Darwin, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Ruse, M. (1979), The Darwinian Revolution: Science Red in Tooth and Claw, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ruse, M. (1986), Taking Darwin Seriously: A Naturalistic Approach to Philosophy, Oxford: Blackwell.

Ruse, M. (1999), Mystery of Mysteries: Is Evolution a Social Construction?, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard university Press.

Ruse, M. (2000), Can a Darwinian be a Christian? The Relationship between Science and Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ruse, M. y R. J. Richards (eds.) (2009), The Cambridge Companion to the “Origin of Species”, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sellars, W. (1963), “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man”, en Science, Perception and Reality, New York: Humanities Press, pp. 1-40.

Snow, C. P. ([1959] 1961), The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Wilson, E. O. (1998), Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, New York: Random House.

Weber, M. (1919), Wissenschaft als Beruf, München und Leipzig: Verlag von Duncker & Humblot.

Published

2024-03-28

How to Cite

Jiménez-Pazos, B. . (2024). Debating Darwin, or the Combat between the Two Cultures: Reflections on a Discomfort in the History of Ideas. Metatheoria – Journal of Philosophy and History of Science, 13(2), 79–91. https://doi.org/10.48160/18532330me13.332