Essay review
Darwins for everyoneThe Cambridge companion to Darwin, Jonathan Hodge, Gregory Radick (Eds.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2003), pp. xiii+486, Price £18.99 paperback, ISBN: 0-521-77730-5

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Introduction

The Cambridge companions to philosophers series contains a new Companion to Charles Darwin. Darwin was not a philosopher, and his Companion contains a very different collection of topics from what one would expect of an anthology devoted to a mainstream philosopher. Section 1 describes Darwinism as a protean phenomenon. It is certainly true that theories going under Darwin’s name take many forms. But I must admit that when I first read through the Table of Contents, protean seemed a less apt term than haphazard. What do the long refuted details of Darwin’s earliest theorizing have to do with modern debates in philosophy of biology and philosophy of mind? However, the more I read, the more interrelations appeared. Many of these go beyond the usefulness of the collection for students and non-specialists, a stated purpose of the series. The accessibility purpose is well served by most of the essays, which are suitable for courses in history or philosophy of science. The first two sections of the book are roughly historical, and the second two deal with contemporary philosophical issues. Particularly useful to nonspecialists in the historical half of the book are Jonathan Hodge’s chapter on the theory-building in Darwin’s Notebooks and Kenneth Waters’s on the argument structure of the Origin. In the philosphical half, Elliott Sober’s clear discussion of the problems of modern philosophy of biology and Kim Sterelny’s of philosophy of mind are similarly useful. The specialist will find most of the rest of the book informative and, once the various perspectives start to be compared, stimulating in unexpected ways. This essay will discuss three issues. The first is a preliminary discussion of the range of views that have come to be called “Darwinian” in the modern day. The second issue is the growing contrast between the historical Darwin and his modern image. The third issue is the evolution of human morality as it was treated by Darwin and by modern “Darwinian” theorists.

Section snippets

The meanings of “Darwinian”

Details on the contrast between the historical Darwin and Darwin as an icon representing modern “Darwinian” evolutionary biology will take up the following section. But even in contemporary usage, a number of distinct views have been designated as Darwinian. The clearest examples include features of the Origin itself: the Tree of Life (descent with modification), natural selection as a cause of adaptation and evolutionary change, and heritable variation within natural populations. Corollaries

Darwin the man, and Darwin our icon

The historical Darwin is probably the most intensely studied individual scientist in history. This person should be distinguished from what I will call the iconic Darwin, the nominal representative of contemporary “neo-Darwinian” evolutionary theory. These two images diverge much more today than they have in the past, because the historical understanding of Darwin’s thought has undergone important changes in the past twenty years. Philosophical discussions of “Darwinism” are mostly geared

Morality, its evolution and its interpretation

Three chapters directly address the evolution of human morality, and several others touch on the issue. Robert Richards discusses the historical Darwin’s views, Alex Rosenberg discusses modern evolutionary views, and Flanagan offers a reconstruction of morality that has components both of literal Darwinism and “Darwinism by analogy”. Other chapters also touch on the issues: Diane Paul’s on social Darwinism and eugenics, and Philip Kitcher’s concluding essay, which urges caution on all

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