This paper aims to examine Kant’s views on evolution of organized beings and to show that Kant’s antievolutionary conclusions stem from his study of natural history and variability of organisms. Accordingly, I discuss Kant’s study of natural history and consider whether his conclusion about impossibility of knowledge about such history expands on the research of history of organized beings. Moving forward, I examine the notion of variability in Kant’s philosophy, and show that his theory (...) of organized beings relies on the preformationist conception of variability that provides limited insight into the history of organisms. I explain that Kant’s endorsement of preformationism is conditioned by a lack of knowledge about the mechanism that successfully explains adaptation and transmutation of organisms leading towards the creation of new species. Finally, I sumarize the following reasons for Kant’s rejection of the hypothesis of evolution: lack of cognitive ability to discover all changes of natural phenomena in different periods of time and adoption of preformationist conception of variability of organized beings. I finish off with a discussion about mechanical inexplicability of organisms and find a third reason Kant believes that the idea of evolution is only “a daring adventure on the part of reason”. (shrink)

[from the publisher's website] Questions about the existence and attributes of God form the subject matter of natural theology, which seeks to gain knowledge of the divine by relying on reason and experience of the world. Arguments in natural theology rely largely on intuitions and inferences that seem natural to us, occurring spontaneously—at the sight of a beautiful landscape, perhaps, or in wonderment at the complexity of the cosmos—even to a nonphilosopher. In this book, Helen De Cruz (...) and Johan De Smedt examine the cognitive origins of arguments in natural theology. They find that although natural theological arguments can be very sophisticated, they are rooted in everyday intuitions about purpose, causation, agency, and morality. Using evidence and theories from disciplines including the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary ethics, evolutionary aesthetics, and the cognitive science of testimony, they show that these intuitions emerge early in development and are a stable part of human cognition. -/- De Cruz and De Smedt analyze the cognitive underpinnings of five well-known arguments for the existence of God: the argument from design, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the argument from beauty, and the argument from miracles. Finally, they consider whether the cognitive origins of these natural theological arguments should affect their rationality. (shrink)

This paper aims to examine Kant's views on evolution of organized beings and to show that Kant's antievolutionary conclusions stem from his study of natural history and variability of organisms. Accordingly, I discuss Kant's study of natural history and consider whether his conclusion about impossibility of knowledge about such history expands on the research of history of organized beings. Moving forward, I examine the notion of variability in Kant's philosophy, and show that his theory (...) of organized beings relies on the preformationist conception of variability that provides limited insight into the history of organisms. I explain that Kant's endorsement of preformationism is conditioned by a lack of knowledge about the mechanism that successfully explains adaptation and transmutation of organisms leading towards the creation of new species. Finally, I sumarize the following reasons for Kant's rejection of the hypothesis of evolution: lack of cognitive ability to discover all changes of natural phenomena in different periods of time and adoption of preformationist conception of variability of organized beings. I finish off with a discussion about mechanical inexplicability of organisms and find a third reason Kant believes that the idea of evolution is only "a daring adventure on the part of reason". (shrink)

Excerpt from Cultures and Institutions of Natural History: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science This volume consists mainly of papers delivered at two meetings cosponsored by the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale in Milan and the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The first, on the Culture of Natural History, was held in Milan, November l4-l 6, I996. The second, on Institutions of Natural History, was held in San Francisco, October (...) 5 - 7, 1998. They followed two earlier conferences on Biology as History (pinna and Ghiselin I996; Ghiselin and Pinna I996) likewise held in Milan and San Francisco. We intend to continue the series of meetings and have publications based on them in commemoration of the Academy's sesquicentennial in 2003. The emphasis here is mainly upon natural history museums and the kind of science that goes on in them. Although the essays were originally written to stand by themselves, when arranged in chronological order they suggest a common theme. To paraphrase Darwin, the culture and institutions of natural history have been, and are being, evolved. They have adapted to local circumstances, diversified, and sometimes even progressed. We may hope that the future holds more than just retrogression and extinction in store. Read as case studies the essays provide valuable insights into not just how, but why, the institutions have come into being and subsequently been transformed. Previous generations had quite different ideas than we do about how a collection of naturalia is supposed to function and how it should be organized. And there were con icting goals and serious disputes about policy, much as there are today. Often, though not always, the institutions turn out to be very different from what had been envisioned by their founders. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.". (shrink)

Nature, History, State: 1933-1934 presents the first complete English-language translation of Heidegger's seminar 'On the Essence and Concepts of Nature, History and State', together with full introductory material and interpretive essays by five leading thinkers and scholars: Robert Bernasconi, Peter Eli Gordon, Marion Heinz, Theodore Kisiel and Slavoj Žižek. The seminar, which was held while Heidegger was serving as National Socialist rector of the University of Freiburg, represents important evidence of the development of Heidegger's political thought. The text (...) consists of ten 'protocols' on the seminar sessions, composed by students and reviewed by Heidegger. The first session's protocol is a rather personal commentary on the atmosphere in the classroom, but the remainder have every appearance of being faithful transcripts of Heidegger's words, in which he raises a variety of fundamental questions about nature, history and the state. The seminar culminates in an attempt to sketch a political philosophy that supports the 'Führer state'. The text is important evidence for anyone considering the tortured question of Heidegger's Nazism and its connection to his philosophy in general. (shrink)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1752 edition. Excerpt:... to which the original Exclusion had been owing, the Points of two short and slender Hairs appear'd protruding themselves from its oval Surface. The thicker butoblong Bodies, from whose Extremities these grew, next forc'd themselves out, and it was evident to a-'n accustom'd Eye, that they were (...) the Antennze of a two wing'd Fly; next presented themselves the anterior Surfaces of two chequeffd Orbs, which were plainly the complex Eyes of anlnsect' of the same Species, separated by a plain Portion of a Forehead; and soon after the whole Head. This was no sooner all in View, than it swell'd to a Diameter equal to twice the Measure of that of the Breast. lt might have appear'd from the first, that the Head was growing under the Eye of the Observer, from the Extremity of the Thorax, but tho' a more rational Enquiry could not but produce for its Answer, that it was only now thrust forth out of the Cavity of the Breast in which it had before been lodg'd; it yet appear'd singular after this sudden Change in Size to conceive how a Thing should have been till that Moment lodg'd in a Cavityz not equal to half its own Diameter. P a The The Head was now entire and in its Place, and the Legs were firm, and supported the Body well, but the Wings did not yet appear. On examining the Place where they were to be expacted, I discover'd two irregular Protuberances of a wrinkled Surface, and considerably large, and under them the two oblong Pedicies which we see supporting the Balls under the Wings of all the two wing'd Flies. It was evident from this, that the Protuberances at the two Sides of the Base of the Thorax were the very Wings in their folded State, and this was soon prov'd by their expanding. The Wings in all this Race of Creatures are the last Part... (shrink)

ABSTRACT In a series of papers read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society through the 1820s, the Cambridge mathematician George Peacock laid the foundation for a natural history of arithmetic that would tell a story of human progress from counting to modern arithmetic. The trajectory of that history, Peacock argued, established algebraic analysis as a form of universal reasoning that used empirically warranted operations of mind to think with symbols on paper. The science of counting would suggest arithmetic, (...) arithmetic would suggest arithmetical algebra, and, finally, arithmetical algebra would suggest symbolic algebra. This philosophy of suggestion provided the foundation for Peacock's “principle of equivalent forms,” which justified the practice of nineteenth-century English symbolic algebra. Peacock's philosophy of suggestion owed a considerable debt to the early Cambridge Philosophical Society culture of natural history. The aim of this essay is to show how that culture of natural history was constitutively significant to the practice of nineteenth-century English algebra. (shrink)

Early-modern natural history has frequently been interpreted as a handmaid of natural philosophy. Mary Poovey, for example, has argued that seventeenth-century nuggets of information only became ‘m...

This article presents a new argument concerning the relation between Kant’s theory of race and aspects of the critical philosophy. It argues that Kant’s treatment of the problem of the systematic unity of nature and knowledge in the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of the Power of Judgment can be traced back a methodological problem in the natural history of the period – that of the possibility of a natural system of nature. Kant’s transformation of (...) the methodological problem from natural history into a set of philosophical problems proceeds by way of the working out of his own problem in natural history – the problem of the natural history of the human races – and specifically the problem of the unity in diversity of the human species, in response to which he develops a theory of race. This theory of race is, further, the first developed model of the use of teleological judgment in Kant’s work. The article thus argues that Kant’s philosophical position on the sy... (shrink)

Natural history collections are typically studied in terms of how they were formed rather than how they were received. This gives us only half the picture. Visiting accounts can increase our historical understanding of collections because they can tell us how people in the past understood them. This essay examines the responses of visitors to Walton Hall in West Yorkshire, home of the traveller-naturalist Charles Waterton and his famous taxidermic collection. Waterton’s specimens were not interpreted in isolation. Firstly, (...) they were experienced as components of a larger visiting experience, in which travelling to the Hall, being admitted to the grounds, viewing the park, and meeting the owner, were all just as significant as seeing the specimens themselves. Secondly, they were interpreted in conjunction with familiar stories and images relating to Waterton’s adventurous collecting activities. Visiting accounts can help us begin to recover what people thought about Waterton and his collection in the nineteenth century. Furthermore, in so far as they were responsible for a large part of his subsequent reputation, they can help us better understand our own, present-day conceptions of Charles Waterton and Walton Hall. (shrink)

What will your soul's gender be in Heaven? Will your pet Harry be there? Could your clone have a soul? Will eternity be fun? What is it with the ghosts of loved ones? A Natural History of the Soul makes a challenging topic accessible through an entertaining and readable exploration. It begins by reviewing beliefs about the soul and the afterlife in our popular culture, and looks at how they have evolved from the earliest humans. It identifies key (...) concepts in philosophy and major religions, and examines developments in medicine and technology that are shaping our ideas. Throughout the book, provocative questions are raised to help clarify your own beliefs and inform emerging social policy debates. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer a comparative survey of Bacon's theory and practice of natural history and of civil history, particularly centered on their relationship to natural philosophy and human philosophy. I will try to show that the obvious differences concerning their subject matter encompass a number of less obvious methodological and philosophical assumptions which reveal a significant practical and con ceptual convergence of the two fields. Causes or axioms are prescribed as the (...) theoretical end-products of natural history, whereas precepts are envisaged as the speculative outcomes derived from perfect civil history. In spite of this difference, causes and precepts are thought to enable effective action in order to change the state of nature and of man, respectively. For that reason a number of common patterns are to be found in Bacon's theory and practice of natural and civil history. (shrink)

Andrew Cooper presents the first systematic study of Kant's account of natural history. Cooper contends that Kant made a decisive contribution to one of the most explosive and understudied revolutions in the history of science: the addition of time to the frame in which explanations are required, sought, and justified in natural science. Through addressing a wide range of Kant's works, Cooper challenges the claim that Kant's theory of science denies a developmental conception of nature and (...) argues instead that it establishes a method by which natural historians can genuinely dispute historical claims and potentially come to consensus. This method, Cooper argues, can be used to expose serious flaws in Kant's own historical reasoning, including the formation and defence of his racist views. The book will be valuable to philosophers seeking to discern both the power and limitations of Kant's theory of science, and to historians of science working on the fractured landscape of eighteenth-century Newtonianism. (shrink)

This book offers a unique synthesis of past and current work on the structure, meaning, and use of negation and negative expressions, a topic that has engaged thinkers from Aristotle and the Buddha to Freud and Chomsky. Horn's masterful study melds a review of scholarship in philosophy, psychology, and linguistics with original research, providing a full picture of negation in natural language and thought; this new edition adds a comprehensive preface and bibliography, surveying research since the book's original publication.

_ Source: _Volume 9, Issue 2, pp 220 - 239 Art has been crucial for Western philosophy roughly since Kant – that is, for what is becoming known as “correlationist” philosophy – because it has so often had assigned to it a singular ontological status. The artwork, in this view, is material being that has been transfigured and shot through with subjectivity. The work of art, what art does and how it works have all been understood as mediating between the (...) otherwise irreconcilable opposites of historical spirit and the mute material world, between communicative thought and the unresponsiveness otherness of nature. I revisit this aesthetic tradition from the perspective of the Anthropocene, the proposed name of the new geological epoch of the present, distinguished by the fact that collective human action has now acquired the scale of a world-shaping natural force. The Anthropocene is at once a geological epoch and a historical period. What forms of narrative might possibly relate these two temporal orders together? What other aesthetic categories might help us think through the conceptual impasse of the Anthropocene present? How might aesthetic experience illuminate the history of Anthropocene? What natural histories might artworks tell today? My speculative endpoint: the Anthropocene globe is the universal artwork of the contemporary moment. (shrink)

This paper seeks to show Kant’s importance for the formal distinction between descriptive natural history and a developmental history of nature that entered natural history discussions in the late eighteenth century. It is argued that he developed this distinction initially upon Buffon’s distinctions of ‘abstract’ and ‘physical’ truths, and applied these initially in his distinction of ‘varieties’ from ‘races’ in anthropology. In the 1770s, Kant appears to have given theoretical preference to the ‘history’ of (...) nature [Naturgeschichte] over ‘description’ of nature [Naturbeschreibung]. Following Kant’s confrontations with Johann Herder and Georg Forster in the late 1780s, Kant weakened the epistemic status of the ‘history of nature’ and gave theoretical preference to ‘description of nature’. As a result, Kant’s successors, such as Goethe, could draw from Kant either a justification for a developmental history of nature, or, as this paper argues, a warrant from the critical philosophy for denying the validity of the developmental history of nature as anything more than a ‘regulative’ idea of reason. (shrink)

Neo‐Aristotelian ethical naturalism purports to show that moral evaluation of human action and character is an evaluation of natural goodness—a kind of evaluation that applies to living things in virtue of their nature and based on their form of life. The standard neo‐Aristotelian view defines natural goodness by way of generic statements describing the natural history, or the ‘characteristic’ life, of a species. In this paper, I argue that this conception of natural goodness commits the (...) neo‐Aristotelian view to a problematic anti‐individualism that results in the wrong assessment of individuals with uniquely adaptive adjustments. I then offer an alternative account of natural goodness that avoids this problem. Instead of relying on generic statements about a species, my account defines natural goodness based on counterfactual conditionals describing the modal properties of a single individual. I argue that this modal‐explanatory account gives a conception of natural goodness that is more intuitively plausible and better suited to capture the diversity and plasticity distinctive of life. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy of mind is dominated by a conception of our propositional attitude concepts as comprising a proto-scientific causal-explanatory theory of behavior. This conception has given rise to a spate of recent worries about the prospects for “naturalizing” the theory. In this paper I return to the roots of the “theory-theory” of the attitudes in Wilfrid Sellars’s classic “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind.” I present an alternative to the theory-theory’s account of belief in the form of a parody of (...) Sellars’s “Myth of Jones,” one that highlights the normative and pragmatic aspects of this concept and, hopefully, enables us to bypass questions about its physical “realization.”. (shrink)

This article presents the main features of the work of Domenico Vandelli (1735-1816), an Italian-born man of science who lived a large part of his life in Portugal. Vandelli's scientific interests as a naturalist paved the way to his activities as a reformer and adviser on economic and financial issues. The topics covered in his writings are similar to those discussed by Linnaeus, with whom Vandelli corresponded. They clearly reveal that the scientific preparation indispensable for a better knowledge of (...) class='Hi'>natural resources was also a fundamental condition for correctly addressing problems of efficiency in their economic allocation. The key argument put forward in this article is that the relationship between natural history and the agenda for economic reform and development deserves to be further analysed. It is indeed a central element in the emergence of political economy as an autonomous scientific discourse during the last decades of the eighteenth century. (shrink)

Whatever its merits and difficulties, the concept of logic embedded in much of the "new philosophy" of the early modern period was then understood to supplant contemporary views of formal logic. The notion of compiling a natural history of the understanding constituted the basis of this new concept of logic. The following paper attempts to trace this view of logic through some of the major and numerous minor texts of the period, centering on the development and influence of (...) John Locke's understanding of the analysis of the cognitive faculties as the discipline of logic. (shrink)

This anthology opens new perspectives in the domain of history, philosophy, and science teaching research. Its four sections are: first, science, culture and education; second, the teaching and learning of science; third, curriculum development and justification; and fourth, indoctrination. The first group of essays deal with the neglected topic of science education and the Enlightenment tradition. These essays show that many core commitments of modern science education have their roots in this tradition, and consequently all can benefit from a (...) more informed awareness of its strengths and weaknesses. Other essays address research on leaning and teaching from the perspectives of social epistemology and educational psychology. Included here is the first ever English translation of Ernst Mach’s most influential 1890 paper on ‘The Psychological and Logical Moment in Natural Science Teaching’. This paper launched the influential Machian tradition in education. Other essays address concrete cases of the utilisation of history and philosophy in the development and justification of school science curricula. These are instances of the supportive relation of HPS&ST research to curriculum theorising. Finally, two essays address the topic of Indoctrination in science education; a subject long-discussed in philosophy of education, but inadequately in science education. This book is a timely reminder of why history and philosophy of science are urgently needed to support understanding of science. From major traditions such as the Enlightenment to the tensions around cultural studies of science, the book provides a comprehensive context for the scientific endeavour, drawing on curriculum and instructional examples. Sibel Erduran, University of Oxford, UK The scholarship that each of the authors in this volume offers deepens our understanding of what we teach in science and why that understanding matters. This is an important book exploring a wide set of issues and should be read by anyone with an interest in science or science education. Jonathan Osborne, Stanford University, USA This volume presents new and updated perspectives in the field, such as the Enlightenment Tradition, Cultural Studies, Indoctrination in Science Education, and Nature of Science. Highly recommended. Mansoor Niaz, Universidad de Oriente, Venezuela This volume provides an extremely valuable set of insights into educational issues related to the history and philosophy of science. Michael J Reiss, University College London, UK. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In a series of papers read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society through the 1820s, the Cambridge mathematician George Peacock laid the foundation for a natural history of arithmetic that would tell a story of human progress from counting to modern arithmetic. The trajectory of that history, Peacock argued, established algebraic analysis as a form of universal reasoning that used empirically warranted operations of mind to think with symbols on paper. The science of counting would suggest arithmetic, (...) arithmetic would suggest arithmetical algebra, and, finally, arithmetical algebra would suggest symbolic algebra. This philosophy of suggestion provided the foundation for Peacock's “principle of equivalent forms,” which justified the practice of nineteenth-century English symbolic algebra. Peacock's philosophy of suggestion owed a considerable debt to the early Cambridge Philosophical Society culture of natural history. The aim of this essay is to show how that culture of natural history was constitutively significant to the practice of nineteenth-century English algebra. (shrink)

This chapter examines Francis Bacon's influence on Buffon's and Diderot's conceptions of natural history.

Sterelny (2003) develops an idealised natural history of folk-psychological kinds. He argues that belief-like states are natural elaborations of simpler control systems, called detection systems, which map directly from environmental cue to response. Belief-like states exhibit robust tracking (sensitivity to multiple environmental states), and response breadth (occasioning a wider range of behaviours). The development of robust tracking and response-breadth depend partly on properties of the informational environment. In a transparent environment the functional relevance of states of the (...) world is directly detectable. Outside transparent environments, selection can favour decoupled representations. Sterelny maintains that these arguments do not generalise to desire. Unlike the external environment, the internal processes of an organism, he argues, are selected for transparency. Parts of a single organism gain nothing from deceiving one another, but gain significantly from accurate signalling of their states and needs. Key conditions favouring the development of belief-like states are therefore absent in the case of desires. Here I argue that Sterelny’s reasons for saying that his treatment of belief does not generalise to motivation (desires, or preferences) are insufficient. There are limits to the transparency that internal environments can achieve. Even if there were not, tracking the motivational salience of external states suggests possible gains for systematic tracking of outcome values in any system in which selection has driven the production of belief-like states. (shrink)

The recent surge of interest in Bacon's own attempts at natural history has revealed a complex interplay with his speculative ideas in natural philosophy. This research has given rise to the concern that his natural histories are theory-laden in a way that Bacon ought to find unacceptable, given his prescription in the Parasceve for a reliable body of factual instances that can be used as a storehouse for induction. This paper aims to resolve this tension by (...) elaborating a moderate foundationalist account of Bacon's method and by appealing to a distinction he makes, in a letter to Father Fulgentio, between pure and impure natural histories. I argue that the discussions of causes and axioms in the published histories render them impure, since that material properly belongs to Part Four of the Instauratio, but that this interplay with Part Four is necessary for the sake of the continued refinement of Part Three (the natural historical part). Bacon ultimately aims for a storehouse of instances, to be attained at the culmination of this process of refinement, and at that point the history should be published in its pure form. (shrink)

In his 1785-review of the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, Kant objects to Herder's conception of nature as being imbued with active forces. This attack is usually evaluated against the background of Kant's critical project and his epistemological concern to caution against the “metaphysical excess” of attributing immanent properties to matter. In this paper I explore a slightly different reading by investigating Kant's pre-critical account of creation and generation. The aim of this is to show that Kant's struggle (...) with the forces of matter has a long history and revolves around one central problem: that of how to distinguish between the non-purposive forces of nature and the intentional powers of the mind. Given this history, the epistemic stricture that Kant's critical project imposes on him no longer appears to be the primary reason for his attack on Herder. It merely aggravates a problem that Kant has been battling with since his earliest writings. (shrink)

This article presents the main features of the work of Domenico Vandelli, an Italian-born man of science who lived a large part of his life in Portugal. Vandelli’s scientific interests as a naturalist paved the way to his activities as a reformer and adviser on economic and financial issues. The topics covered in his writings are similar to those discussed by Linnaeus, with whom Vandelli corresponded. They clearly reveal that the scientific preparation indispensable for a better knowledge of natural (...) resources was also a fundamental condition for correctly addressing problems of efficiency in their economic allocation. The key argument put forward in this article is that the relationship between natural history and the agenda for economic reform and development deserves to be further analysed. It is indeed a central element in the emergence of political economy as an autonomous scientific discourse during the last decades of the eighteenth century.Author Keywords: Vandelli; Linnaeus; Natural History; Political Economy; Enlightenment. (shrink)

This essay defends a form of ethical naturalism in which ethical knowledge is explained by human nature. Human nature, here, is not the essence of the species but its natural history as socially and historically determined. The argument does not lead to social relativism, but it does place limits on the scope of ethical critique. As society becomes “total”, critique can only be immanent; to this extent, Adorno and the Frankfurt School are right.

The article provides an example of the application of the techniques and results of historical linguistics to traditional problems in the philosophy of language. It takes as its starting point the dispute about the nature of facts that arose from the 1950 Aristotelian Society debate between J. L. Austin and P. F. Strawson. It is shown that, in some cases, expressions containing the noun fact refer to actions and events; while in other cases, such expressions do not have a referring (...) function at all. Thus, nothing corresponding to Strawson's 'pseudomaterial correlate' need be postulated in order to account for the reference of the noun fact. It is suggested that many philosophically problematic expressions may be better understood by tracing their historical evolution in natural language. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Argument ofthe Natural History Mark Webb In the NaturalHistoryofReligion Hume claims there are two principal questions concerning religion: one "concerning its foundation in reason," and the other "concerning its origin in human nature." He forthrightly states that his concern here is to determine "[w]hat those principles are, which give rise to the original belief, and what those accidents and causes are, which direct its operation."1 That (...) is to say, his express intentis, via an empirically based study, to determine and elucidate the causal or natural origin of religion—its beliefs and practices. These are among his first remarks. Consider now his very last remarks: The whole is a riddle, an aenigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result ofour most accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species ofsuperstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape, into the calm, though obscure, regions ofphilosophy. (NHR 4:363) These last remarks should strike one as enigmatic: for, given that his purported aim is to offer a naturalistic account ofwhy humans hold religious beliefs, it is strange that he should be content to end in mystery—particularly sosince theworkitselfonersaplausible account ofsuch origins. Still, even ifHume should have felt the project to have failed, what does that have to do with "suspense of judgment," "quarrelling superstitions," and especially his "happy escape"? But of course he is up to much more in the Natural History than he lets on. Indeed,he offersnotonly acausal accountofreligiousbeliefbutamoral critique ofitas well. Why shouldhe doboth in the same work? I suggest that the causal account and the moral critique are intimately connected; and that the work is first and foremost a moral critique intended to sever allegiance to "traditional religion"—traditional theism in general, and Christianityin particular. One aim ofthis paper Volume XVII Number 2 141 MARKWEBB is to offer a unified reading of the Natural History, while the other is to assess the cogency ofHume's project on this reading. To this end we should first situate the Natural History among Hume's other works. It follows the firstEnquiry which addresses inter alia the credibility of "revealed" religion (particularly section 10, "Of Miracles"), and the second Enquiry which advances a naturalistically based morality. It was completed about the time he began the Dialogues, the main contention ofwhich is that natural theology offers minimal if any support for most traditional religious claims. In the Natural History, then, it is reasonable to suppose he is assuming the cogency of his claims against revealed religion, the viability of a naturalistically based morality, and the utter inability of natural theology to ground either traditional religious tenets or morality. The Dialogues in particular illuminate Hume's thought: after concluding that a posteriori arguments offer absolutely no grounds for ascribing the traditional moral attributes to the Deity, Philo goes on to counter Cleanthes' claim—that "[r]eligion, however corrupted, is still better than noreligion atall"2—bycontendingthattraditional religion simply is unessential andeven harmful to the needs ofsociety. Hume advances his causal account because he believes both that traditional religion lacks any basis in reason, and that recourse to a supernatural origin is untenable. And it will become evident in the course of this paper that the Natural History is most accurately understood against the backdrop of his moral theory as expounded in the second Enquiry—indeed the former is an exercise in applied ethics. The Strategy ofthe Natural History The sceptical tone ofmany ofits passages should strike one as out of place. For the scepticism is directed not towards providing a causal account of the origin ofreligious beliefs and practices (the purported aim), but rather towards their plausibility. Yet one might well expect such passages if Hume is assuming that religion has no tenable basis in reason nor for its revelational claims, and that he intends the work to be more than merely a natural history—as indeed he does. Speaking of polytheism and the... (shrink)

The concept of natural history has received a great deal of attention in contemporary practical philosophy, especially as a result of Michael Thompson's concept of natural-historical judgments which aims to explain the normativity of the human life-form. With this concept, the norms effective in a life-form are understood as something natural and constitutive for that life-form. Although Thompson does not present a historical-philosophical model, he claims to be able to determine the normativity of the historically developing (...) human life-form. By contrast, Theodor W. Adorno developed his own concept of natural history on the one hand as an interpretative conceptual model of historical reality, on the other hand, to indicate the normativity of the natural-historical course of human history itself. The normativity of natural history that Adorno focuses on is historically and socially determined, in contrast to the categorically conceived natural normativity that is at the heart of Thompson's approach. This article analyses the similarities and differences between the two approaches in such a way that it becomes clear to what extent ethical naturalism also provides possibilities for critique that can be made fruitful for a critical theory inspired by Adorno. (shrink)

This paper argues that the construction of natural histories, as advocated by Francis Bacon, played a central role in John Locke's conception of method in natural philosophy. It presents new evidence in support of John Yolton's claim that "the emphasis upon compiling natural histories of bodies ... was the chief aspect of the Royal Society's programme that attracted Locke, and from which we need to understand his science of nature". Locke's exposure to the natural philosophy of (...) Robert Boyle, the medical philosophy of Thomas Sydenham, his interest in travel literature and his conception of the division of the sciences are examined. From this survey, a cumulative case is presented which establishes, independently of an in-depth exegesis of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the central role for Locke of the construction of natural histories in natural philosophy. (shrink)

This paper analyses the place of natural history within Bacon's divisions of the sciences in The Advancement of Learning and the later De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum. It is shown that at various points in Bacon's divisions, natural history converges or overlaps with natural philosophy, and that, for Bacon, natural history and natural philosophy are not discrete disciplines. Furthermore, it is argued that Bacon's distinction between operative and speculative natural philosophy and (...) the place of natural history within this distinction, are discontinuous with the later distinction between experimental and speculative philosophy that emerged in the methodology of the Fellows of the early Royal Society. (shrink)

Absent as a breeding bird from Britain for at least a century, avocets began nesting on the east coast of Britain, in Suffolk, shortly after the end of the Second World War, having homed in on two spots on Britain’s coast that had been flooded for war-related reasons. The avocets’ presence was surrounded in secrecy, while a dedicated few kept up a protective watch over them. As the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds took over responsibility for the flourishing (...) colony, they claimed the episode as a symbol of success for British protection, later making the bird their logo. Counter to the RSPB’s story of protecting a British bird, I read the narratives of events in terms of making a bird British. I show how, as postwar Britain slumped economically and spiritually and tried to rebuild itself, the birds became a vehicle for formulating national identity: of Britain as a home to which to return and belong. Exploring the themes of returning servicemen and closed territories, the paper also examines the episode in terms of the naturalisation of the military and the militarisation of nature. (shrink)

ABSTRACTRheinberger's brief history brings into sharp profile the importance of history of science for a philosophical understanding of historical practice. Rheinberger presents thought about the nature of science by leading scientists and their interpreters over the course of the twentieth century as emphasizing increasingly the local and developmental character of their learning practices, thus making the conception of knowledge dependent upon historical experience, “historicizing epistemology.” Linking his account of thought about science to his own work on “experimental systems,” (...) I draw extensive parallels with other work in the local history of science and consider the epistemological implications both for the relation between history and philosophy of science and between history and theory more broadly. In doing so, I suggest that the long‐standing gap between the natural sciences and history as a “human science” has been significantly bridged by the insistence upon the local, mediated, indeed “historicized epistemology” of actual science. (shrink)

The question that I propose to consider is the ghost in modern philosophy. Its step has been heard more distinctly at some times than at others. But it has never rattled its chains so loudly as during the recent popularity of Existentialism. The question is: How is man related to the universe? All philosophers who pride themselves on being modern reject the ancient answer to the question. The most emancipated modern philosophers refuse to hear the question. Nevertheless some answer to (...) this question is presupposed by all philosophy. (shrink)