Michael Ruse

A common complaint of biologists is that their subject receives poor treatment from philosophers—it gets but a fraction of the attention accorded to physics and chemistry, and what little it does receive, is usually of the type where ‘All swans are white’ is taken to be a paradigmatic example of the state of biological thinking. It cannot be denied that this complaint is, to a great extent, justified; however, there are some notable breaches in the wall of ignorance and silence, amongst which must be numbered The Ascent of Life by T.A. Goudge. In this book, starting from what is obviously a very wide knowledge of biology, Goudge attempts a careful and thorough analysis of one of the major achievements of biological thought, evolutionary theory. The conclusions that Goudge draws are many; nevertheless, one can discern running through them a common theme, namely that whilst evolutionary theory is indeed a legitimate branch of science, to assume that it is a science of the same nature as physics and chemistry would be a grave error. Goudge argues that, despite certain similarities to other branches of science, the essential aims, methods and results of evolutionary theory are peculiar unto itself.

The one thing upon which we can all agree is that just over ten years ago a major revolution occurred in the science of geology. Geologists switched from accepting a static earth-picture, to endorsing a vision of an earth with its surface constantly in motion. (Cox [4]; Hallam [12]; Marvin [28]; Wilson [56]). It is true that early in this century the German geologist Alfred Wegener argued that the continents as we today find them have “drifted” to their positions from other positions widely different. However, other than amongst a number of scientists drawn almost exclusively from the Southern Hemisphere, his ideas fell on deaf — or more precisely, contemptuous — ears. Then in the mid 1960’s, almost literally overnight, the geological community swung around and embraced the hypothesis of continental drift, or what we shall see is perhaps more accurately called “plate tectonics”.

These remarks preface two volumes consisting of the proceedings of the Third International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science. The conference was held under the auspices of the Union, The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Science. The meetings took place in Montreal, Canada, 25-29 August 1980, with Concordia University as host institution. The program of the conference was arranged by a Joint Commission of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science consisting of Robert E. Butts (Canada), John Murdoch (U. S. A. ), Vladimir Kirsanov (U. S. S. R. ), and Paul Weingartner (Austria). The Local Arrangements Committee consisted of Stanley G. French, Chair (Concordia), Michel Paradis, treasurer (McGill), Fran~ois Duchesneau (Universite de Montreal), Robert Nadeau (Universite du Quebec it Montreal), and William Shea (McGill University). Both committees are indebted to Dr. G. R. Paterson, then President of the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Science, who shared his expertise in many ways. Dr. French and his staff worked diligently and efficiently on behalf of all participants. The city of Montreal was, as always, the subtle mixture of extravagance, charm, warmth and excitement that retains her status as the jewel of Canadian cities. The funding of major international conferences is always a problem.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:144 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28" 1 JANUARY 199o name neo-Kantianism is generally used only for the time following 188o.s And is K6hnke really beingjust toward later neo-Kantianism in reckoning the 187os as a high point after which only a period of decline could follow? HELMU'r HOLZHEY Universityof Zurich Robert J. Richards. Darwin and the Emergenceof Evolutionary TheoriesofMind and Behav- /or. Science and Its Conceptual Foundations Series. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987. Pp. xvii + 7oo. $34.95. This fascinating book operates at two levels, possibly three. At the most straightforward level, it is a history of science, telling the tale of the fate of evolutionary ideas as they have been applied to mind and behavior during the past two centuries, with special emphasis on the nineteenth century. At another level, Richards is acting qua philosopher, for he thinks the story he has to tell has important implications for philosophy. In particular, he thinks the people he discusses show the way to compelling theories of evolutionary epistemology and evolutionary ethics. To this end he attaches two philosophical appendices to his book, articulating and defending his philosophical claims. Then, at perhaps a third level, Richards uses his historical narrative as a case study (and possibly an exemplar) for his philosophy, especially his epistemology, trying to justify and illustrate his position. Let me take these levels in turn, briefly. First, we have the history. Anybody who knows anything at all about the history of science will know that the subject is clogged with overproduction and overinterpretation around a few key figures. Chief among these is Charles Darwin, and if ever anyone writes anything again on his discovery of natural selection, I for one will scream. What I have long suspected-- and what Richards shows in full detail--is that, because of their tunnel vision, the historians of science thereby ignore huge fertile areas, which go untouched. And the paradox is that the narrow perspective means that important aspects of those overdiscussed figures go unanalyzed! Certainly, Richards plows virgin territories, and thereby throws new light on many important figures in biology, psychology, and philosophy--not the least of which is Darwin himself. Richards starts in the eighteenth century with the first growths of evolutionary thought, showing that from the beginning thinkers recognized that humankind had to be part of the problem, and that this meant (in particular) human thought and behavior. I was glad to see a full discussion of Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin. We are now starting to realize how he merits interest in his own right, not just as a curious anticipation of his more famous grandson. Moving forward, Richards shows how Erasmus Darwin struggled constantly with the problem of the human mind, as did Frenchmen like Lamarck. These and other thinkers were all known to s See H. Holzhey, "Neukandanismus," in HistorischesWOrterbuchderPhilosopfiie,vol.6 (1984), column 747ft. BOOK REVIEWS 145 Charles Darwin, and a significant part of Richards's discussion is devoted to showing just how much of Charles Darwin's thought on mind and behavior was built out of the work of others--with his own distinctive twists. Richards emphasizes, and I am sure he is right here, that natural theology was crucial to the development of Charles Darwin's thinking. It was not, as many critics have claimed, a case of Darwin throwing off religion and then taking up evolution. Rather, he has led to his evolution through his religion. Richards is almost unique among twentieth-century thinkers in finding virtue in the work of Herbert Spencer. I am still not convinced that Spencer was other than a tedious Victorian chauvinist. But no doubt I will not be the only scholar who is happy to have a Spencer apologist against whom one can test one's critical opinions. To be commended without reservation, however, is Richards's detailed analysis of the psychobiological thinking of William James. Richards delicately balances his knowledge of James's own psychological states (including facts still suppressed) with conceptual analysis of James's scientific claims. I do not know if this counts as "externalist" or "internalist " history of science, but it certainly shows that knowledge...

Charles Darwin, the leading evolutionist, introduces and discusses his key mechanism, natural selection, in Chapter IV of his On the Origin of Species (1859). He shows how the mechanism follows from the struggle for existence, together with random variation, and he argues that it not only explains change, but change in the direction of features of adaptive worth. He introduces the secondary mechanism of sexual selection and then, through examples, shows how selection might be expected to work in nature. He argues, based on the economic notion of the division of labor, that this shows how selection can lead to there being different species. He ends the chapter by showing how the overall result is a tree of nature, with the primitive at the bottom and the complex at the top.

T. A. Gouge has argued that certain explanations in evolutionary biology should be understood as conforming to the so-called ‘narrative’ model of explanation, where the chief distinguishing feature between this model and the well-known ‘covering-law’ model is that this narrative model, unlike the covering-law model, makes no appeal at all to laws. In support of his case Goudge offered an example of an evolutionary explanation which, he claimed, comes closer to the narrative model than the covering-law model. In a recent paper in this Journal I offered a critique of Goudge's model of narrative explanation, and I suggested that there were good reasons for understanding Goudge's example of an evolutionary explanation as making some kind of appeal to laws.

This introduction outlines the vision and scope of The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. While, historically speaking, the academic study of atheism has not always and everywhere received the attention it deserves, that does not mean that there is not already a significant body of scholarship on the subject. In particular, a great deal of new and exciting work—in a wide range of disciplines, and from scholars in many different countries—has emerged within the past decade. The Oxford Handbook of Atheism seeks to bring much of this together in one volume, not only as a synthesis and survey of what is already out there, but as an aid and prompt to current and future researchers going ever further. This introduction also includes an overview of the contents of the Handbook.

With the coming of evolutionary speculations in the middle of the nineteenth century, there was much interest in the possible implications of these ideas for ethical thinking and action. Two basic approaches can be discerned, that of Herbert Spencer who saw ongoing progress in life’s history and used this to promote and justify proper conduct and that of Charles Darwin who used his theory of evolution through natural selection to explain moral thought and behavior. Both approaches found supporters and critics, and there has been much subsequent confusion through mistaken conflations of these very different forms of evolutionary ethics.