Abstract

Thank God someone wrote this book. This reviewer has often wondered why there hasn't been more scholarship on the relationship between evolutionary theory, particularly Charles Darwin, and the early pragmatists. Since thinkers like John Dewey and Jane Addams often use the language of evolutionary theory in suggestive ways when discussing social-ethical matters, without explicating precisely where they hew to and depart from the theory itself, it's incumbent on their readers to articulate these relations. Eddy proves an excellent guide through the diversity of evolutionary theory itself, and the diversity of responses to it, which serve as compelling intellectual groundwork for highlighting Dewey's and Addams's...