Darwin's long and short arguments

Philosophy of Science 57 (4):677-689 (1990)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Doren Recker has criticized the prevailing accounts of Darwin's argument for the theory of natural selection in the Origin of Species. In this note I argue that Recker fails to distinguish between a deductive short argument for the principle of natural selection, and a non-deductive, long argument which aims at establishing that the principle has explanatory power in the various domains of application. I shall try to show that the semantic view of theories, especially in its structuralist form, makes it easy to distinguish between the two arguments and to explain how Darwin's long argument counts as one argument. I also raise a question about Recker's views on Darwin's mid-Victorian background, arguing that Newton's First Rule of Reasoning was not just a constraint on hypotheses involving unobservables, but a general request to keep conjecture and certainty apart

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 99,445

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Darwin, Herschel, and the role of analogy in Darwin's origin.Peter Gildenhuys - 2004 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 35 (4):593-611.
Darwin's argument in the origin.M. J. S. Hodge - 1992 - Philosophy of Science 59 (3):461-464.
Modus Darwin reconsidered.Case Helgeson - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science:1-21.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
55 (#320,388)

6 months
13 (#193,531)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Matti Sintonen
University of Helsinki

Citations of this work

Darwin's argument in the origin.M. J. S. Hodge - 1992 - Philosophy of Science 59 (3):461-464.
Pattern as Observation: Darwin’s ‘Great Facts’ of Geographical Distribution.Casey Helgeson - 2017 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 7 (2):337-351.
Evolutionary synthesis: A search for the strategy.Juha Tuomi - 1992 - Philosophy of Science 59 (3):429-438.

View all 6 citations / Add more citations