According to the legend, Bishop Wilberforce at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Oxford on Saturday, June 30th, 1860, turned to Thomas Huxley, and asked him ``Is it on your grandfather's or your grandmother's side that you claim descent from a monkey''; whereupon Huxley delivered a devastating rebuke, thereby establishing the primacy of scientific truth over ecclesiastical obscurantism. Although the legend is historically untrue in almost every detail, its persistence suggests that (...) it may nonetheless be true in some deeper, mythical, sense. To explore this possibility the British Academy has invited Dr Janet Browne to be a neo-Huxley confronting Mr J.R. Lucas, as a neo-Wilberforce, with each reconsidering their earlier arguments. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom teaches that Thomas Huxley discredited Richard Owen in their debate over ape and human brains. This paper reexamines the dispute and uses it as a test case for evaluating the metaphysical realist, internal realist, and social constructivist theories of scientific knowledge. Since Owen worked in the Kantian tradition, his anatomical research illustrates the implications of internal realism for scientific practice. As an avowed Cartesian, Huxley offered a well developed attack on Owen''s position from a metaphysical (...) realist perspective. Adrian Desmond''s political retrospective on the dispute affords the additional opportunity to contrast internal realism with social constructivism. I argue that since Huxley ultimately based his attack on his valuing Europeans as superior to blacks, his argument illustrates the hazards of accepting the metaphysical realist promise of value free science. Desmond overlooks this racial dimension of the dispute, and his work shows how social constructivism can distract the historian and philosopher from even the social meaning of science. As internal realists like Putnam have argued, values enter science not from without, but from within the very process of science itself. (shrink)

Evolution and ethics. Prolegomena (1894).--Evolution and ethics (1893).--Science and morals (1886).--Capital, the mother of labour (1890).--Social diseases and worse remedies (1891): Preface. The struggle for existence in human society. Letters to the Times. Legal opinions. The articles of war of the Salvation Army.

Known as 'Darwin's Bulldog', the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was a tireless supporter of the evolutionary theories of his friend Charles Darwin. Huxley also made his own significant scientific contributions, and he was influential in the development of science education despite having had only two years of formal schooling. He established his scientific reputation through experiments on aquatic life carried out during a voyage to Australia while working as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy; ultimately he (...) became President of the Royal Society. Throughout his life Huxley struggled with issues of faith, and he coined the term 'agnostic' to describe his beliefs. This nine-volume collection of Huxley's essays, which he edited and published in 1893–4, demonstrates the wide range of his intellectual interests. Volume 1 begins with a brief autobiography, and examines the development and progress of scientific practice and knowledge. (shrink)

he "many things" to which the Duchess's correspondent here refers are the repairs and improvements of the episcopal seat at Auckland. I doubt if the great apologist, greater in nothing than in the simple dignity of his character, would have considered the writing an account of himself as a thing which could be put upon him to do whatever circumstances might be taken in. But the good bishop lived in an age when a man might write books and yet be (...) permitted to keep his private existence to himself; in the pre-Boswellian epoch, when the germ of the photographer lay in the womb of the distant future, and the interviewer who pervades our age was an unforeseen, indeed unimaginable, birth of time. (shrink)

h e Darwinian hypothesis has the merit of being eminently simple and comprehensible in principle, and its essential positions may be stated in a very few words: all species have been produced by the development of varieties from common stocks; by the conversion of these, first into permanent races and then into new species, by the process of natural selection , which process is essentially identical with that artificial selection by which man has originated the races of domestic animals—the struggle (...) for existence taking the place of man, and exerting, in the case of natural selection, that selective action which he performs in artificial selection. (shrink)

Introduction: historical and critical, by J. Huxley.--Prolegomena, written by T. H. Huxley as an introd. to Evolution and ethics.--Evolution and ethics, Romanes lecture delivered by T. H. Huxley in 1893.--Evolutionary ethics, Romanes lecture delivered by J. Huxley in 1943.--The vindication of Darwinism, by J. Huxley (1945)--Conclusion, by J. Huxley.

What is philosophy about? According to the author of this work it is fundamentally the answer to the question: 'What can I know?' T. H. Huxley , the distinguished English scientist and disciple of Darwin, succeeds in giving a clear and succinct account of the way in which Scottish philosopher David Hume answered this question. The book is divided into two parts: in the first, Huxley provides the reader with a sketch of Hume's life, but the main emphasis (...) of the book is in Part 2, where by expounding Hume's views on the object of philosophy, consciousness, theology, language and free will, Huxley guides the reader towards an understanding of how Hume's philosophical principles can be regarded as a search for the ultimate element out of which all valid knowledge may be shown to emerge. (shrink)

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Evolution and ethics: prolegomena--Evolution and ethics.--Science and morals.--Capital, the mother of labour.--Social diseases and worse remedies.

Let us now imagine that some administrative authority, as far superior in power and intelligence to men, as men are to their cattle, is set over the colony, charged to deal with its human elements in such a manner as to assure the victory of the settlement over the antagonistic influences of the state of nature in which it is set down. He would proceed in the same fashion as that in which the gardener dealt with his garden.

Known as 'Darwin's Bulldog', the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was a tireless supporter of the evolutionary theories of his friend Charles Darwin. Huxley also made his own significant scientific contributions, and he was influential in the development of science education despite having had only two years of formal schooling. He established his scientific reputation through experiments on aquatic life carried out during a voyage to Australia while working as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy; ultimately he (...) became President of the Royal Society. Throughout his life Huxley struggled with issues of faith, and he coined the term 'agnostic' to describe his beliefs. This nine-volume collection of Huxley's essays, which he edited and published in 1893–4, demonstrates the wide range of his intellectual interests. (shrink)

Known as 'Darwin's Bulldog', the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was a tireless supporter of the evolutionary theories of his friend Charles Darwin. Huxley also made his own significant scientific contributions, and he was influential in the development of science education despite having had only two years of formal schooling. He established his scientific reputation through experiments on aquatic life carried out during a voyage to Australia while working as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy; ultimately he (...) became President of the Royal Society. Throughout his life Huxley struggled with issues of faith, and he coined the term 'agnostic' to describe his beliefs. This nine-volume collection of Huxley's essays, which he edited and published in 1893–4, demonstrates the wide range of his intellectual interests. Volume 9 includes lectures delivered at Oxford University on the relationship between scientific thought and ethical problems. (shrink)

Known as 'Darwin's Bulldog', the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was a tireless supporter of the evolutionary theories of his friend Charles Darwin. Huxley also made his own significant scientific contributions, and he was influential in the development of science education despite having had only two years of formal schooling. He established his scientific reputation through experiments on aquatic life carried out during a voyage to Australia while working as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy; ultimately he (...) became President of the Royal Society. Throughout his life Huxley struggled with issues of faith, and he coined the term 'agnostic' to describe his beliefs. This nine-volume collection of Huxley's essays, which he edited and published in 1893–4, demonstrates the wide range of his intellectual interests. Volume 1 begins with a brief autobiography, and examines the development and progress of scientific practice and knowledge. (shrink)

Known as 'Darwin's Bulldog', the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was a tireless supporter of the evolutionary theories of his friend Charles Darwin. Huxley also made his own significant scientific contributions, and he was influential in the development of science education despite having had only two years of formal schooling. He established his scientific reputation through experiments on aquatic life carried out during a voyage to Australia while working as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy; ultimately he (...) became President of the Royal Society. Throughout his life Huxley struggled with issues of faith, and he coined the term 'agnostic' to describe his beliefs. This nine-volume collection of Huxley's essays, which he edited and published in 1893–4, demonstrates the wide range of his intellectual interests. Volume 2 examines the criticism and controversy surrounding Darwin's work, and the implications of his ideas on biological science. (shrink)

Known as 'Darwin's Bulldog', the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was a tireless supporter of the evolutionary theories of his friend Charles Darwin. Huxley also made his own significant scientific contributions, and he was influential in the development of science education despite having had only two years of formal schooling. He established his scientific reputation through experiments on aquatic life carried out during a voyage to Australia while working as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy; ultimately he (...) became President of the Royal Society. Throughout his life Huxley struggled with issues of faith, and he coined the term 'agnostic' to describe his beliefs. This nine-volume collection of Huxley's essays, which he edited and published in 1893–4, demonstrates the wide range of his intellectual interests. Volume 3 contains lectures and essays spanning thirty years of campaigning about the importance of science in education. (shrink)

Known as 'Darwin's Bulldog', the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was a tireless supporter of the evolutionary theories of his friend Charles Darwin. Huxley also made his own significant scientific contributions, and he was influential in the development of science education despite having had only two years of formal schooling. He established his scientific reputation through experiments on aquatic life carried out during a voyage to Australia while working as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy; ultimately he (...) became President of the Royal Society. Throughout his life Huxley struggled with issues of faith, and he coined the term 'agnostic' to describe his beliefs. This nine-volume collection of Huxley's essays, which he edited and published in 1893–4, demonstrates the wide range of his intellectual interests. In Volume 4, Huxley turns to the issue of faith and science, examining the apparent conflict between theology and evolution. (shrink)

Known as 'Darwin's Bulldog', the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was a tireless supporter of the evolutionary theories of his friend Charles Darwin. Huxley also made his own significant scientific contributions, and he was influential in the development of science education despite having had only two years of formal schooling. He established his scientific reputation through experiments on aquatic life carried out during a voyage to Australia while working as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy; ultimately he (...) became President of the Royal Society. Throughout his life Huxley struggled with issues of faith, and he coined the term 'agnostic' to describe his beliefs. This nine-volume collection of Huxley's essays, which he edited and published in 1893–4, demonstrates the wide range of his intellectual interests. In Volume 5, Huxley discusses the doctrines of Christianity and explains how his dissatisfaction with conventional religion led him to agnosticism. (shrink)

Known as 'Darwin's Bulldog', the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was a tireless supporter of the evolutionary theories of his friend Charles Darwin. Huxley also made his own significant scientific contributions, and he was influential in the development of science education despite having had only two years of formal schooling. He established his scientific reputation through experiments on aquatic life carried out during a voyage to Australia while working as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy; ultimately he (...) became President of the Royal Society. Throughout his life Huxley struggled with issues of faith, and he coined the term 'agnostic' to describe his beliefs. This nine-volume collection of Huxley's essays, which he edited and published in 1893–4, demonstrates the wide range of his intellectual interests. In Volume 6, Huxley focuses on the philosopher David Hume, discussing his life and his philosophical and intellectual work. (shrink)

Known as 'Darwin's Bulldog', the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was a tireless supporter of the evolutionary theories of his friend Charles Darwin. Huxley also made his own significant scientific contributions, and he was influential in the development of science education despite having had only two years of formal schooling. He established his scientific reputation through experiments on aquatic life carried out during a voyage to Australia while working as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy; ultimately he (...) became President of the Royal Society. Throughout his life Huxley struggled with issues of faith, and he coined the term 'agnostic' to describe his beliefs. This nine-volume collection of Huxley's essays, which he edited and published in 1893–4, demonstrates the wide range of his intellectual interests. Volume 7 features a collection of lectures discussing the biological relationship of humans to apes and other animals. (shrink)

Known as 'Darwin's Bulldog', the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was a tireless supporter of the evolutionary theories of his friend Charles Darwin. Huxley also made his own significant scientific contributions, and he was influential in the development of science education despite having had only two years of formal schooling. He established his scientific reputation through experiments on aquatic life carried out during a voyage to Australia while working as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy; ultimately he (...) became President of the Royal Society. Throughout his life Huxley struggled with issues of faith, and he coined the term 'agnostic' to describe his beliefs. This nine-volume collection of Huxley's essays, which he edited and published in 1893–4, demonstrates the wide range of his intellectual interests. Volume 8 contains public lectures given by Huxley, on themes as diverse as yeast, lobsters and palaeontology. (shrink)

Hume: Hume's life. Hume's philosophy.--Helps to the study of Berkeley: Bishop Berkeley on the metaphysics of sensation (1871). On sensation and the unity of structure of sensiferous organs (1879).

Lectures on evolution -- On the physical basis of life -- Naturalism and supernaturalism -- The value of witness to the miraculous -- Agnosticism -- The Christian tradition in relation to Judaic Christianity -- Agnosticism and Christianity.

In struggling to free science from theological implications, Huxley let his own philosophical beliefs influence his interpretation of the data. However, he was certainly not unique in this respect. Like the creationists he despised, he made many important contributions to the issue of progression in the fossil record and its relationship to evolutionary theory. Certainly other factors were involved as well. Undoubtedly, just the sheer inertia of ideas played a role. He was committed to a theory of type and (...) was heavily influenced by von Baer, who argued that one could not rate the different types as being higher or lower than the others. By the mid-1850s his animosity toward Owen had become extreme and he tried to discredit the man whenever possible; yet, as I have pointed out, he also was more than willing to cite Owen's early work when it suited his needs.But I believe the crucial factor in Huxley's eventually accepting progression was that he finally disassociated it from the idea of divine plan. This happened gradually through the 1860s and 1870s, as more and more fossil finds provided support for Darwin's theory. In evaluating this new evidence that supported gradualism, Huxley also realized that progression was an intrinsic part of Darwin's theory:The hypothesis of evolution supposes that at any given period in the past we should meet with a state of things more or less similar to the present, but less similar in proportion as we go back in time... if we traced back the animal world and the vegetable world we should find preceding what now exist animals and plants not identical with them, but like them, only increasing their differences as we go back in time, and at the same time becoming simpler and simpler until finally we should arrive at that gelatinous mass which, so far as our present knowledge goes, is the common foundation of all life.In concluding his first lecture to the Americans, he told them: “The hypothesis of evolution supposes that in all this vast progression there would be no breach of continuity, no point at which we could say ‘This is a natural process,’ and ‘This is not a natural process.’”85 Finally for Huxley, progression was no longer linked to Divine Plan. (shrink)

A key source of support for the view that challenging people’s beliefs about free will may undermine moral behavior is two classic studies by Vohs and Schooler (2008). These authors reported that exposure to certain prompts suggesting that free will is an illusion increased cheating behavior. In the present paper, we report several attempts to replicate this influential and widely cited work. Over a series of five studies (sample sizes of N = 162, N = 283, N = 268, N (...) = 804, N = 982) (four preregistered) we tested the relationship between (1) anti-free-will prompts and free will beliefs and (2) free will beliefs and immoral behavior. Our primary task was to closely replicate the findings from Vohs and Schooler (2008) using the same or highly similar manipulations and measurements as the ones used in their original studies. Our efforts were largely unsuccessful. We suggest that manipulating free will beliefs in a robust way is more difficult than has been implied by prior work, and that the proposed link with immoral behavior may not be as consistent as previous work suggests. (shrink)

It is a matter of some irony that psychiatry's most trenchant critic for over four decades is himself a psychiatrist. I refer to Thomas S. Szasz. Szasz's core thesis may be succinctly rendered: mental illness is a “myth”, a “metaphor” which serves only to obscure the social and ethical “problems in living” we face as human beings. This paper reconsiders the conceptual bases of Szasz's assault on psychiatry and assesses recent counter-arguments of his critical interlocutors. It presents a defence (...) of the Szaszian conception and emphasises the continuing relevance of his earliest work. Additionally, the paper discusses Szasz's thesis in light of the work of the influential French philosopher of medicine, Georges Canguilhem. (shrink)

_Freedom and Tradition in Hegel _stands at the intersection of three vital currents in contemporary ethics: debates over philosophical anthropology and its significance for ethics, reevaluations of tradition and modernity, and a resurgence of interest in Hegel. Thomas A. Lewis engages these three streams of thought in light of Hegel’s recently published _Vorlesungen über die Philosophie des Geistes_. Drawing extensively on these lectures, Lewis addresses an important lacuna in Hegelian scholarship by first providing a systematic analysis of Hegel’s philosophical (...) anthropology and then examining its fundamental role in Hegel’s ethical and religious thought. Lewis contends that Hegel’s anthropology seeks to account for both the ongoing significance of the religious and philosophical traditions in which we are raised and our ability to transcend these traditions. Pursuing the implications of the integral role of practice in Hegel’s anthropology, Lewis argues for a more progressive interpretation of Hegel’s ethics and a “Hegelian” critique of Hegel’s most problematic statements on political and social issues. Lewis concludes that Hegel offers a powerful strategy for reconciling freedom and tradition. "_Freedom and Tradition in Hegel_ is a highly important contribution to the scholarship. Lewis brings Hegel's 'philosophy of subjective spirit' to light in a way that corrects previous interpretations of Hegel's thinking on religion, ethics, and politics. This book establishes Lewis as one of the leading Hegel scholars based in religious studies. It is a book that Hegel scholars in several disciplines will need to take seriously." —Jeffrey Stout, Princeton University "Written with admirable clarity, this important contribution to Hegel scholarship is lively, argumentative, and substantial." —Stephen Crites, Wesleyan University. (shrink)

SummaryDuring the 1860s the sciences relating to human diversity were undergoing significant intellectual and methodological changes. The older generation of practitioners including James Cowles Prichard, Thomas Hodgkin and John Crawfurd were slowly passing away. Recognising that there was an opportunity to take a leading role in reforming the study of human variation, two competing intellectual camps vied for control of the nascent discipline; anthropologists led by James Hunt, and ethnologists led by Thomas Huxley. Taking their observational practices (...) and vocational strategies as its starting point, this paper seeks to expand our understanding of the debates surrounding British race studies during the 1860s. In doing so, this paper takes seriously Hunt and Huxley's self-descriptions as scientific reformers. Both of these figures promoted strategies for transforming the sciences relating to human diversity. Each believed they were strengthening anthropology and ethnology's best aspects and dispensing with their weakest. Moreover, their training in natural history, anatomy and physiology can be seen to have influenced their observational practices when it came to identifying and classifying human varieties. (shrink)

In our contemporary post-modern context, it has become increasingly awkward to talk about a good that is shared by all. This is particularly true in the context of mammoth multi-national corporations operating in global markets. Nevertheless, it is precisely some of these same enormous, aggrandizing forces that have given rise to recent corporate scandals. These, in turn, raise questions about ethical systems that are focused too myopically on self-interest, or the interest of specific groups, locations or cultures. The obvious traditional (...) alternative to moral bellybutton gazing is the common good, which challenges the modern business enterprise to realize non-instrumental values that can only be attained in our life together. The common good dictates that leadership should be judged, first of all, according to moral criteria rather than professional competence. It helps correct the distorted prioritization of the maximization of profit in every business decision, recognizing that businesses have a multitude of rights and responsibilities, and the common good reminds us that the first of these is not always profit-making. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been an intense debate about the concept of “biological” or “genetic citizenship.” The growing literature on this topic mostly refers to the importance of patients’ associations, disease advocacy organizations, and self-help groups that are giving rise to new forms of subjectivation and collective action. The focus is on the extension of rights, the emergence of new possibilities of participation, and the choice-enhancing options of the new genetics. However, this perspective tends to neglect the potential for (...) exclusion and restriction of citizenship rights based on biological traits. We aim to broaden and complement the existing theoretical discussion on biological citizenship, which so far has concentrated on the medical sphere, by investigating a new empirical field. The article analyzes the use of DNA analysis for family reunification and shows that biological criteria still play an important role in decision making on citizenship rights in nation-states. Presenting Germany as an exemplary case, we argue that the use of parental testing endorses a biological concept of the family that is mobilized to diminish citizenship rights. The argument is based on documentary analysis and on interviews with representatives of nongovernmental organizations and immigration authorities, lawyers, geneticists, and applicants for family reunification. (shrink)

The debate between science and religion is never out of the news: emotions run high, fuelled by polemical bestsellers like The God Delusion and, at the other end of the spectrum, high-profile campaigns to teach 'Intelligent Design' in schools. Yet there is much more to the debate than the clash of these extremes. As Thomas Dixon shows in this balanced and thought-provoking introduction, many have seen harmony rather than conflict between faith and science. He explores not only the key (...) philosophical questions that underlie the debate, but also the social, political, and ethical contexts that have made 'science and religion' such a fraught and interesting topic in the modern world, offering perspectives from non-Christian religions and examples from across the physical, biological, and social sciences. Along the way, he examines landmark historical episodes such as the trial of Galileo by the Inquisition in 1633, and the famous debate between 'Darwin's bulldog' Thomas Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce in Oxford in 1860. The Scopes 'Monkey Trial' in Tennessee in 1925 and the Dover Area School Board case of 2005 are explained with reference to the interaction between religion, law, and education in modern America. (shrink)

O niilismo é um tema importante em Genealogia da moral (1887) e está estreitamente associado a seus conceitos principais. No entanto, no parágrafo 12 da II Dissertação dessa obra, e somente nele, aparece o termo “niilismo administrativo” (administrativen Nihilismus) sem nenhuma explicação de seu sentido, a não ser que se trata de uma censura que Thomas Huxley fez a Herbert Spencer. Nesse parágrafo, Nietzsche apresenta o principal pressuposto de seu procedimento genealógico: a função de uma estrutura, seja ela (...) um organismo vivo ou uma instituição cultural, que ocorre em um determinado momento, não nos diz nada sobre a origem dessa mesma estrutura. Esse pressuposto, somado à noção de vontade de potência, antagoniza-se à concepção spenceriana de adaptação. Nesse contexto, o objetivo deste artigo, por meio principalmente da análise do ensaio Administrative Nihilism (1871) de Huxley, é esclarecer o papel que a rápida menção ao niilismo administrativo exerce no parágrafo citado de Genealogia da moral, especificamente na crítica nietzschiana contra Spencer. (shrink)

Standard accounts in social ontology and the group cognition debate have typically focused on how collective modes, types, and contents of intentions or representational states must be construed so as to constitute the jointness of the respective agents, cognizers, and their engagements. However, if we take intentions, beliefs, or mental representations all to instantiate some mental properties, then the more basic issue regarding such collective engagements is what it is for groups of individual minds to share a mind. Somewhat surprisingly, (...) this very issue has not received much attention in the respective debates and when it has, typically the outlook has been skeptical or outright negative. In this paper, I argue that it is epistemologically possible for a group of individuals to literally share a single mental unit. In particular, I will put forward and defend what I shall call the zombie conception of group minds. (shrink)