Darwin's Metaphor
Author: Robert Maxwell Young
Publisher: CUP Archive
Published: 1971
Total Pages: 380
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPosts
Darwin's Metaphor
Author: R. M. Young
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1985-10-31
Total Pages: 368
ISBN-13: 9780521300834
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this collection of closely interrelated essays, Robert Young emphasizes the scope of the nineteenth-century debate on 'man's place in nature' at the same time as he engages with the approaches of scholars who write about it. He is critical of the separation of the writing of history from writing about history, historiography, and of the separation of history from politics and ideology, then or now. Dr Young challenges fellow historians for reimposing the very disciplinary boundaries that the nineteenth-century debate showed were in the service of ideological forces in that culture. Rather, he proposes that the full weight of the contending forces should be made apparent and debated openly so that neither nineteenth-century nor contemporary issues about the role of science in culture should be treated in a narrow perspective.
Darwin's Argument by Analogy
Author: Roger M. White
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2021-11-04
Total Pages: 261
ISBN-13: 1108851657
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn On the Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin put forward his theory of natural selection. Conventionally, Darwin's argument for this theory has been understood as based on an analogy with artificial selection. But there has been no consensus on how, exactly, this analogical argument is supposed to work – and some suspicion too that analogical arguments on the whole are embarrassingly weak. Drawing on new insights into the history of analogical argumentation from the ancient Greeks onward, as well as on in-depth studies of Darwin's public and private writings, this book offers an original perspective on Darwin's argument, restoring to view the intellectual traditions which Darwin took for granted in arguing as he did. From this perspective come new appreciations not only of Darwin's argument but of the metaphors based on it, the range of wider traditions the argument touched upon, and its legacies for science after the Origin.
Aristotle's Ladder, Darwin's Tree
Author: J. David Archibald
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2014-08-19
Total Pages: 257
ISBN-13: 0231537662
DOWNLOAD EBOOKLeading paleontologist J. David Archibald explores the rich history of visual metaphors for biological order from ancient times to the present and their influence on humans' perception of their place in nature, offering uncommon insight into how we went from standing on the top rung of the biological ladder to embodying just one tiny twig on the tree of life. He begins with the ancient but still misguided use of ladders to show biological order, moving then to the use of trees to represent seasonal life cycles and genealogies by the Romans. The early Christian Church then appropriated trees to represent biblical genealogies. The late eighteenth century saw the tree reclaimed to visualize relationships in the natural world, sometimes with a creationist view, but in other instances suggesting evolution. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) exorcised the exclusively creationist view of the "tree of life," and his ideas sparked an explosion of trees, mostly by younger acolytes in Europe. Although Darwin's influence waned in the early twentieth century, by midcentury his ideas held sway once again in time for another and even greater explosion of tree building, generated by the development of new theories on how to assemble trees, the birth of powerful computing, and the emergence of molecular technology. Throughout Archibald's far-reaching study, and with the use of many figures, the evolution of "tree of life" iconography becomes entwined with our changing perception of the world and ourselves.
Metaphors in the History of Psychology
Author: David E. Leary
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1994-07-29
Total Pages: 404
ISBN-13: 9780521421522
DOWNLOAD EBOOKArguing that psychologists and their predecessors have invariably relied on metaphors in articulation, the contributors to this volume offer a new "key" to understanding a critically important area of human knowledge by specifying the major metaphors.
Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species
Author: David Amigoni
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2024-06-04
Total Pages: 224
ISBN-13: 1526184184
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume marks a new approach to a seminal work of the modern scientific imagination: Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859). Darwin's central theory of natural selection neither originated nor could be contained, with the parameters of the natural sciences, but continues to shape and challenge our most basic assumptions about human social and political life. Several new readings, crossing the fields of history, literature, sociology, anthropology and history of science, demonstrate the complex position of the text within cultural debates past and present. Contributors examine the reception and rhetoric of the Origin and its influence on systems of classification, the nineteenth-century women's movement, literary culture (criticism and practice) and Hinduism in India. At the same time, a re-reading of Darwin and Malthus offers a constructive critique of our attempts to map the hybrid origins and influences of the text. This volume will be the ideal companion to Darwin's work for all students of literature, social and cultural history and history of science.
Biology as Society, Society as Biology: Metaphors
Author: Sabine Maasen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2013-12-01
Total Pages: 353
ISBN-13: 9401106738
DOWNLOAD EBOOKnot lie in the conceptual distinctions but in the perceived functions of metaphors and whether in the concrete case they are judged positive or negative. The ongoing debates reflect these concerns quite clearly~ namely that metaphors are judged on the basis of supposed dangers they pose and opportunities they offer. These are the criteria of evaluation that are obviously dependent on the context in which the transfer of meaning occurs. Our fundamental concern is indeed the transfer itself~ its prospects and its limits. Looking at possible functions of metaphors is one approach to under standing and elucidating sentiments about them. The papers in this volume illustrate, by quite different examples, three basic functions of metaphors: illustrative, heuristic~ and constitutive. These functions rep resent different degrees of transfer of meaning. Metaphors are illustrative when they are used primarily as a literary device, to increase the power of conviction of an argument, for example. Although the difference between the illustrative and the heuristic function of metaphors is not great, it does exist: metaphors are used for heuristic purposes whenever "differences" of meaning are employed to open new perspectives and to gain new insights. In the case of "constitutive" metaphors they function to actually replace previous meanings by new ones. Sabine Maasen in her paper introduces the distinction between transfer and transforma tion.
The Major Metaphors of Evolution
Author: Salvatore J. Agosta
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: 2020-08-29
Total Pages: 273
ISBN-13: 3030520862
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book presents a unified evolutionary framework based on three sets of metaphors that will help to consolidate discussions on evolutionary transitions. Evolution is the unifying principle of life, making identifying ways to apply evolutionary principles to tackle existence-threatening crises such as climate change crucial. A more cohesive evolutionary framework will further the discussions in this regard and also accelerate the process itself. This book lays out a framework based on three dualistic classes of metaphors – time, space, and conflict resolution. Evolutionary transitions theory shows how metaphors can help us understand selective diversification, as Darwin described with his “tree of life”. Moreover, the recently proposed Stockholm paradigm demonstrates how metaphors can help shed light on the emergence of complex ecosystems that Darwin highlighted with his “tangled bank” metaphor. Taken together, these ideas offer proactive measures for coping with existential crises for humanity, such as climate change. The book will appeal to biologists, philosophers and historians alike.
Metaphor and the Dynamics of Knowledge
Author: Sabine Maasen
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-01-11
Total Pages: 229
ISBN-13: 1134620306
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book opens up a new route to the study of knowledge dynamics and the sociology of knowledge. The focus is on the role of metaphors as powerful catalysts, and the book dissects their role in the construction of theories of knowledge. It is of vital interest to social and cognitive scientists alike.
Darwin without Malthus
Author: Daniel P. Todes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1989-07-13
Total Pages: 242
ISBN-13: 0195363272
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe first book in English to examine in detail the scientific work of 19th-century Russian evolutionists, and the first in any language to explore the relationship of their theories to their economic, political, and natural milieu.
