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8Chimpanzees and Sign Language: Darwinian Realities versus Cartesian DelusionsThe Pluralist 6 (3): 19-24. 2011.
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4Charles Darwin s theory of natural selection challenges our very sense of belonging in the world. Unlike prior evolutionary theories, Darwinism construes species as mutable historical products of a blind process that serves no inherent purpose. It also represents a distinctly modern kind of fallible science that relies on statistical evidence and is not verifiable by simple laboratory experiments. What are human purpose and knowledge if humanity has no pre-given essence and science itself is our…Read more
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38William James’s Social Evolutionism in FocusThe Pluralist 6 (3): 80-92. 2011.It is well known that William James’s thinking was influenced by evolutionary theory and by Darwin’s theory of natural selection in particular. It is easy to misunderstand James’s evolutionary thinking, however, if one is tempted to read contemporary evolutionary views back into James. In this article I try to avoid such anachronism by carefully distinguishing James’s evolutionary views from some of their nearest conceptual neighbors. I focus in particular on James’s social evolutionism, especia…Read more
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