Article ID: CBB000015762

The Whewell-Darwin controversy (1976)

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Description “In formulating his approach to natural history in 1837-8, Darwin combined ideas and techniques from several areas, of which five are identified. But these do not show why he formulated such an all-embracing approach, going from geology to human instincts, morality, and aesthetic responses. The hypothesis presented here is that Darwin was responding to a Romantic view of natural history such as the one held by William Whewell. The Romantics challenged the adequacy of reductionist systems which, they said, could not explain the `higher' faculties. Darwin sought a reductionist (`materialist') system which would meet the Romantic objections.” From the abstract.


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Authors & Contributors
Snyder, Laura J.
Ruse, Michael
Wettersten, John R.
Valone, David A.
Thorvaldsen, Steinar
Stack, David
Journals
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Perspectives on Science
Rivista di Filosofia
Rivista Critica di Storia della Filosofia
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry
Publishers
York University (Canada)
Johns Hopkins University
University of Chicago
Concepts
Science
Evolution
Intellectual history
Nature
Psychology
Nature and its relationship to culture; human-nature relationships
People
Whewell, William
Darwin, Charles Robert
Mill, John Stuart
Herschel, John Frederick William
Comte, Auguste
Schleiden, Matthias Jakob
Time Periods
19th century
Places
British Isles
Great Britain
Institutions
Cambridge University
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