Abstract

This paper looks at the neo-Kantian response to Darwinism as a historical science. I distinguish four responses to this aspect of Darwin’s thought from within the neo-Kantian tradition. The first line of response, represented by August Stadler and Bruno Bauch, views Darwin’s model of historical explanation as a fulfilment of Kant’s criteria of scientific intelligibility. The second, represented by Otto Liebmann, regards historical explanation as intrinsically limited, because it cannot tell us why nature develops as it does. The third line of response questions whether we can give a historical account of qualitative change. Friedrich Lange expresses this scepticism in general terms, while Alois Riehl and Ernst Cassirer extend it to human beings specifically. A fourth line of response, represented by Heinrich Rickert, challenges the misperception that Darwinian explanatory principles such as natural selection have normative or socio-political significance.