Darwin's Argument by Analogy: From Artificial to Natural Selection

ISBN-13: 9781108477284 / Angielski / Twarda / 2021 / 260 str.

Roger M. White (University of Leeds);M. J. S. Hodge (University of Leeds);Gregory Radick (University of Leeds)

Opis

In On the Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin put forward his theory of natural selection. Conventionally, Darwin's argument for this theory has been understood as based on an analogy with artificial selection. But there has been no consensus on how, exactly, this analogical argument is supposed to work – and some suspicion too that analogical arguments on the whole are embarrassingly weak. Drawing on new insights into the history of analogical argumentation from the ancient Greeks onward, as well as on in-depth studies of Darwin's public and private writings, this book offers an original perspective on Darwin's argument, restoring to view the intellectual traditions which Darwin took for granted in arguing as he did. From this perspective come new appreciations not only of Darwin's argument but of the metaphors based on it, the range of wider traditions the argument touched upon, and its legacies for science after the Origin.

Recenzje

'… best explains Darwin's overall argument strategy in the Origin, but they also contend that it provides insight into 'the broader historiographical, philosophical, and socio-economic themes and issues' associated with Darwin and his research.' Andrea Sullivan-Clarke, Metascience

Spis treści

Introduction; 1. Analogy in classical Greece; 2. Analogy in the background to the Origin; 3. Darwin's analogical theorising before the Origin; 4. The 'one long argument' of the Origin; 5. An analysis of Darwin's argument by analogy; 6. Darwin's use of metaphor in the Origin; 7. Rebuttals of the revisionists; 8. Wider issues concerning Darwinian science.